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BY 

EMILY T. B. BENNETT. 



The bcingrs of the mind are not of clay ; 

Essentially immortal, they create 
And multiply in us a brigrhter ray 

And more'beloved existence: that which Fate 
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state 
Of mortal bondage. • * ♦— Chiidb Harold. 

From earth's brig'ht faces fades the lipht of morn, 

From earth's glad voices drops the joyous tone; 
But ye, the children of the soul, were born 

Deathless, and for iin lyiuff love ah'ne; 
And O ! ye beautiful ! 'tis well, how well, 
In the Boul'a world with you, where change la not, to dwell !— H em ans. 



DEXTER & COMPANY; 

Philadelphia— 149 South Fourth St. ; Boston— 40 Pearl Street 
Cincinnati— R. W. Carroll & Co. 

1865. 



1 



26596 



Entered according to Act of Congress in tlie year 1SG5, by 

DEXTER & COMPANY, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern Dis- 
trict of New-York. 



BEXT-'B & CO. PRINT. 
17 SPELCEST. N.T. 




DEDICATORY. 



To every heart in my now eminently free native 
land ; gratefully including those dear friends whose 
spontaneous sympathy and partial judgment have 
proven my surest source of insjiiration ; with far less 
less of tlie noble, arl^itrary power of art, than tlie 
simple, warm impulse of nature, do I pleasurably and 
trusting'ly inscribe these imperfect perceptions of 
life's philosophy and poetry, only asking of those 
^vllO may generously give them their brief attention, 
the exercise of sweet charity and the kindness of 
universal love. 

E. T. B. B. 



Cincinnati, 18C5. 



After the press work of this poem had commenced, a fire occurred in 
the stercotypinsc rooms, leaving a number of the plates in a damaged 
condition, whi<!h wen* hastily re-set and re-cast, but not without the 
following 

ERRATA : 

Page 84, Tth line is omitted: read 

"Then fnni the viney alcove he withdrew." 
f-5, 4th line, for "flowers" read "flours." 
i)7, 1st line, for "brambling'' read "branding." 
100, 5th line, for "bower" read "bowed." 
100, 22d line, for "up" read "upon." 
121, 24th line, for "explorer's" read "explorers." 
166, Last line, read "As mild as Cautantowit's breath bestows." 
184, Tih line, for ''raptuous" read "rapturous." 
218, 5th lino, for "heart" read "harp." 
244. Last line is omitted : read "The queen jf all its floral train. 



CONTENTS. 



The Song of the Rivers •- 9 

' " —Part II lit 

" " —Refrain 190 

Happiness and Industry - 195 

Remembrances 19t 

Morning in the Country 198 

Evening in the Country --- 200 

The Children of JEolus 202 

Analogy 205 

Sunset Questions 206 

A Comparison -«--• 20t 

To MY Father on his Sixtieth Birthday - - - 208 

Bury Me tv Some Forest Grand 210 

The Death of Summer 211 

Lost Treasures --- 213 

The Spirit of Beauty 215 

A Dream 217 

To a Friend of the Past 218 

Rays of Light 220 



6 contexts. 

Retrospection -•-' 222 

Unrest 225 

Inspiration 22G 

The Sowing of Light 228 

My Stars 230 

My Companion 232 

Fantasie 234 

Distrust 23G 

Secret Life 238 

The Spirit of Spring 240 

To AN Absent Husband 243 

Contentment 244 

Forbidden Joys 246 

Murmurs 248 

Contemplation 250 

Memento Mori 252 

Mimosa 253 

Lamenting 255 

The August Shower 257 

A Moment of Despondency 258 

Song of a Sunbeam 259 

Home Invocation 2GI 



SONG OF THE ElVEKS. 



SONG OF THE EIVERS. 



Mild Genoa whose sunny slope 
First met our ' Sea-king's 'eyes 

Deep in immeasurable hope, 
And slumbrous destinies, — 

Home of our land's discoverer, 

AVe greet thee from its templed shore 1 

Columbus, star of time, 'tis thee— 

God's true interpreter 
Of science and immensity, — 

Most royal mariner 
Of mountain waves, thy secret keeping", — 
Thee pride salutes, the past o'ersweeping I 

Sea-winds moved gently on that day, 

Hushed Tritons swam below, 
Awed by the new persuasive ray 

That lit the Old World's brow, 
Illuminating History's shroud, 
Extending Ocean's outlines broad . 



10 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Spain fed the fire of tliat young soul,— - 
A queen bestowed her smile ; — 

Launched — onward to the goal, 
To continent or isle, 

Bidding Futurity, 'all hail,* 

Those heroes of the tide set saiL 

Glory allures with phantom arms 

Man's sonl to her embrace ; 
While he pursues, recede her charms, 

Still dazzling, giving place 
To empty air, or scorpion stings. 
When feels the mind bereft of wings. 

Say, was it this that lured them on,— 

Adventurers so bold; 
Till when long lonely months were gone 

Calm trust relaxed its hold 
On men unnerved by shoreless seas, 
Their leader's voice could scarce appease ? 

Glory and gain — by these possest, 
Love mingling some faint hue ; 

When danger weakened each strong breast, 
Doubting if Heaven were true. 

Denied hope's anchor, tossed and broken. 

Reproach became their spirit's token. 

But he, the king of that sail realm, 
Wilt call him else tha^^ hv^vo 



SONG OF THE MVERS. 11 

While watching o'er his vessel's helm 

The flashing of the wave, — 
Deny we him true glory's smile, 
Or ask if there he sighed the while ? 

No I no 1 a stronger soul was his, 

Prophetic in its fire, 
Life's benefaction crowning bliss, 

Which deepening, pointing higher, 
Defined far o'er the sea's fair shores 
Waiting to greet The Nations' oars. 

'Alight! a light 1' An island lone 

Adds lustre to the stars ! 
And, in the misty morning's dawn 

'Land!' breaks the watery bars : — 
* San Salvador,' an islet gem 
Transferred to Castile's diadem I 

Years pass : again and yet again 

A continent was sought — 
Ah! who asserts, in vain, in vain 

Columbus nursed the thought 
Which gave his name to realms like these 
Bounding the poles and sovereign seas! 

The Western World a myth no more, 

The hero wanderer died ; 
Where rest his bones, that land and shore 

May cherish them in pride ; — 



12 SONG OF TIIE RIVERS. 

A life-time dream became its trust, 
And honored sleeps Italian dust. 

While centuries their courses rolled 

Ambition lured its slaves, 
Who sought distinction, fame and gold, 

And found — ignoble graves, — /' 
Contentment's treasures, sorrow's cost, 
By thought's infatuation lost. 

De Leon for this new-found sphere 
Embarked with trusting dreams, 

Seeking a fount whose ripples clear, 
And pure immortal gleams, 

Could check the beautiful's decay 

And make youth's morn an endless May, 

He found a land of wondrous bloom, 
Where trees were gay with flowers, 

Where many a sylvan streamlet's tune 
Courted the lingering hours. 

Where rich luxuriant Nature shone 

In solitude, but not alone. 

Bird, insect, beast and waterfall 
Blended their music there ; 

Great Nature swelling at their call 
Woke zephyrs from the air, 

Nor need had she for man to sing 

Response to her perpetual Spring. 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 13 

But for man's soul no wave was found 

With youth's elixir fraught ; 
Death whispered still, 'by me ye're bound, — 

I scorn your deathless thought ; 
Eden is here, but sin is thine, — 
The curse of toil and age is mine/ 

Fernando Soto caught the fii'e 

Of wild ambition's aim, 
Intrepid in his soul's desire, 

Dazzled by hopes of fame 
He sped impetuous o'er the way, 

His motto 'Spain and Florida.' 

Upon the new, bewildering strand 

His followers watched his eye j 
Raising aloft his graceful hand, 

He spoke, 'success or dieP 
Then o'er the flowery plains untried 
They marched with danger for their guide. 

Not spectres of the dismal swamp. 

Nor prowling Indian's hate, 
Nor panthers howling round their camp 

Revoked their wandering fate ; 
'\¥hile threading wild or fording wave 
Unfaltering long their hearts were brave. 

Thus summers passed ; — mild winters wore 
With marcli and death away ; 



14 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Scarce came brief tidings from the shore 

Of Spain or Florida ; — 
When fears wore spoken, Soto frowned, — 
His ' El Dorado' still unfound. 

Leaving blue Alabama's tide, 

Their numbers growing less, 
The remnant marched with gloomy stride 

West in the wilderness ; 
They thought not how their mission's power 
Outran the years, to this grand hour I 

Lo I bursting on their weary gaze 

A mighty stream is flowing 
Beneath the forest's tangled maze, 

With sunset changes glowing : 
Slowly it rolls — an endless sea, 
Majestic, deep, perpetually. 

Three hundred buried j^ears have told 

Time's stories of the past ; 
Of all its pages free from mould 

One record shines forecast. 
So long as Mississippi flows 
To tropic seas from Arctic snows. 

The Bow of Commerce spans in pride 

From bank to bank its wave 
And never bends but where the tide 

Sweei^s o'er De Soto's p-rave : 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 15 

Breaking the shade of chambers deep, 
Its hues grow brighter o'er his sleep. 

Meanwhile unnumbered cycles gray 

May wreathe the shaft of time, 
Illumined till the latest day 

To make his fate sublime, 
A shadow and a radiance mild, 
Tablet for one adventurous child. 



Behold the wasting of a dream, 
While flickers life's spent lamp I 

The tents are pitched beside the stream, 
Low murmurs from the camp 

Whisper that now the hand of death 
Is slowly stealing Soto's breath. 

An Indian maiden fans his brow. 
Her coal-tinged eyes are deep ; 

Her tears as when the south-winds blow 
Rain as the blossoms weep, 

Falling upon the sufferer's cheek 
Whose eye of pride is strangely meek. 

And by his couch a Spaniard stands. 

Accepting hope's despair ; 
Bending to clasp his leader's hands 

He something whispers there 



16 SON'G Of THE RIVERS. 

Which lifers vagiic wfaiidering" gaze enchains, 
Brig-htening mid death's all-conquering pains. 

He speaks : — ' Moscoso I no return 

Shall let me conquer more ; 
Ambition's fires have ceased to burn, — 

Farewell, my native shore, — 
To mortal man I never bowed, 
But now I kiss Jehovah's rod. 

* In my own river, folded round 

With Castile's banner wide, — 
In midnight's silent hour profound, 

Entomb me in its tide : 
Consign me to my wave-walled h(>me 
With lighted torch and roll of drum. 

' Unpaled by man, unknown to fear, 

Alone, let me sleep : 
The conqueror — discoverer, 

Desiros no eye to weep 
His watery grave so early made 
Far west of Florid's everglade. 

* Moscoso, hear, my follower brave, 

My dying words obey ; 
Cross not the wilderness ; the wave 

More safely shall convey 
The remnant of my people back 
From this illusive, danp,-crous track.' 



SOxNG OF THE RIVERS. IT 

He from his withered hand withdrew 

An ancient massive ring, 
And while his lips more livid grew, 

And fainter ebbed life's spring, 
Moscoso reverently wore 

The pledge his master's finger bore. 

Now noiseless through the tent 

A savage warrior strides ; 
His plume is by the curtain bent, 

The wamp^am girds his sides ; 
His lineaments with war-paint black, 
And shades of death are in his track I 

A Natchez chief to challenge war ; 

His tawny neck arrayed 
In chains of cougar's claws, and hair 

Of human tresses made : 
One hand contains a war-pipe red, 
Its mate an emblem ever dread — 

A bunch of poisoned arrows bound 

With skin of rattlesnake ; 
He broke a sileiice deep, profound 

As midnight o'er a lake. 
While on the couch the gift he flung, 
The war-whoop rising from his tongue. 

Symbols that spoke the deadly hate 
Of this most warlike tribe 



lb' SONG OF THE RIVERS, 

Who save by these gave no debate, 

Eeceived nor price nor bribe,— 
Pursuing with revengeful breath 
The white chief to his verge of death. 

Defiantly he raised the pipe, — 

No calumet of peace, — 
The stern, complete, embodied typei 

Of a relentless race ; 
Its rising smoke but slowly curled. 

For Soto lingered in the world. 

The leader watched the potent scene, 

With one unearthly moan — 
But angered, unrelenting mien. 

His arms were upward thrown ; 
He clutched the covering of his bed 
As though 'twere lance or rapier dread. 

With one fierce bound he forward sprang 

His features flashing fire ; 
'St Jagol' 'Spain,' 'De Soto,' rang 

In stern victorious ire. 
Then death the struggle made complete,— 
He fell beside the Indian's feet 

Ambition ! Ruler of the soul I 
When monarch there thou art, 

To many a strange uncertain goal 
Thou leadest mind and heart — 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 19 

Thou wild inspirer of the breast 
That ever after feels no rest I 

The sun had set o'er wave and wild ; 

The noon of darkness breathed 
Life-tainting- damps ; bright stars were piled 

High up the dome, and wreathed 
The ebon brow of night, that bade 
Its silence chill o'er bluff and glade. 

Five hundred torches flaming red 

Illumed a funeral track, 
While holy priest with censor led 

The train o'er waters black, 
And high Te JDeum anthems gave 
Solemnity to air and wave. 

With Castile's ensign gaily bound, 

Still upright as in life, 
With sword in hand, by helmet crowned, — 

All powerless for strife, — 
The dark canoe with silent oar 
His corse o'er turbid waters bore 

Grim shades commingling with the gleam 

Sent awe to every man ; 
Midway the dark sepulchral stream 

A signal from the van 
Sank in the flow each lurid light, 
And all was dark as Stygian night. 



20 SONG OF THE RIVEKS. 

As down the lifeless burden fell 
No noisy plunge was heard ; 

O'er rippling wave or distant dell 
Went forth no echoing word, 

And slowly turned each fragile bark 

To follow shade or meteor spark. 

At dawn the wild beasts roaming near 
Broke forth their sullen roar, 

And Indians in their coverts drear 
Felt Soto was — no more ; 

Still moved the Mississippi on, 

As calmly as through ages gone. 



Land of the pilgrim's love I New England green 1 
Above thy hills the brightest skies are seen ; 
Around thy groves and spires swell purest airs,— 
Thy bosom nature's noblest children bears I 
Thy vine-wreathed homes and monuments of mind, 
Fondly in memory's urn are all enshrined 

Fair stream 1 the pride of my own native glen, 
Bright line of olden heraldry, again 
My feet would press thy bank serene, 
Thou circling radiance I thou river queen I 
Mild Housatonic ! thy eccentric tide 
Circles the valley of my father's pride ; 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 21 

And when my eye surveys thy graceful sweep, 

E'en for the sorrows of his youth I weep. 

Still 'neath thy elm tree shades, with ceaseless tone 

Sighing thy requiems for heroes gone, 

Perpetuate the sympathetic strains 

When nevermore the red man roves thy plains ; 

But let the music of the cultured soul 

Thy most enduring harmonies control I 

Where wild Missouri's dusky flood maintains 

Its wavering course through groves and bluff-bound 

plains, 
The remnant of a wandering tribe* supply 
The hunting grounds thy fertile fields deny ; 
Named by their dark forefathers, thou 
A seal baptismal bearest on thy brow. 
Which changing ages never shall efface, 
Though lost in sands, forgotten be thy place I 

Now by a mightier river's curving side 

I stand and watch its majesty of tide, 

Asking in vain of some remoter morn 

When for this path its sovereignty was born I 

'Tis solitude around me ; I but hear 

With spirit sense, an angel whisperer, 

Invoking memory to write the tale 

Which once from fading lips, and frail, 

Revealed to me, — a stranger wandering here — 

The story of a dying one, with smile and tear 

*The Stockbridge tribe. 



22 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

So STrcet, so limpid, each became the seal 

Of all truth's inspiration might reveal. 

And, reader, turn with me thy pensive gaze 

Toward this summer sun's retreating rays — 

Behold a narrow mound o'ershadowed by 

The neighboring forests sentry, broad and high, 

A balsam pine, which mournful, mournful sings, 

With every tune each wind and season brings. 

I stand beside thee, but in thought aAvay, 

Through blooming fields and shaded dells I stray, 

Sail o'er bright waters, thread dark forests through, 

O'er mountain summits fringed with heaven's blue, 

Till 'mong the hills and vales again I stand, 

Beside the river of my fatherland : 

On Housatonic's bank, — my fingers weave 

Of willows green, a wreath for yonder grave ; 

In memory's sweet refrain which love bestows, 

I pluck the treasures of the wayside rose. 

Mingling some everlasting buds, I seek 

To make the crown a heavenly story, speak ; — 

Memorial — fair trophy of the East. 

I'd lay it where our wanderer's relics rest. 

'Twas May — a morning bright, and years ago, — 
Serenely mild and blue, the river's flow 
Circled a happy vale by mountains crowned. 
An emerald gem by graceful distance bound ; 
Violets starred with blue its meadow grass 
Whose cowslips scarce would let the sunbeams pass 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 23 

There flowed a brook's perpetual, laug-liing tide, 

Whose spray shed burnished diamonds far and wide, 

Moistening the wanton lambkin's snowy fleece, 

Bidding the spotted lily bloom in peace ; — 

And there a white and humble cottage stood. 

With oaken floors, and windows low and rude, 

Beloved by many a tendril of the vine, 

Whose shades spoke early of the sun's decline. 

On that fair morn, a sweet May flower unrolled 

Its outer petals, roseate to behold, 

But not to wither like the rose of Spring, 

Not fleeting as the red-bird's coral wing . 

This infant girl on youthful parents smiled, 

An early hope, a consecrated child ; 

Another self to guide in wisdom's ways, 

A soul to tune for Heaven's immortal lays. 

Like rills unprisoned, dancing, bright and strong, 

Anticipations woke with hope and song 

Of joys that led the future's angel train. 

Bringing sweet antidotes for transient pain. 

The child of wedded love, love was her air, . 

Her earliest food ; — so gentle and so fair 

Was she 1 Affection never clung 

To stronger hearts like viney tendrils hung 

In oak tree bowers : her eyes, full, large and blue. 

Mimosa-like, from look severe withdrew : 

Her presence then and ever, was akin 

To joy that spirits feel unknown to sin ; 



24 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

But Earth ne'er offers bliss so full, the draught 
Commingles no illusive drops when quaffed. 

She grew, a duteous and an only child, 

From year to year with richer promise smiled ; 

No brother roved with her in sprightly mien 

The wildwood shades, and sunny pastures green ; 

No sister's hand of blossoms white and rare 

Wove crowns to bind her curling auburn hair, 

Yet she was happy, artless, pure and free, 

A flower, a singing bird, a honey bee. 

She learned the homes of all the vernal flowers, 

And sought their smiles in these warm freshening hours 

That follow winter's chill receding reign, 

Ere yet young grasses clothe the ground again. 

The small wind flower* whose robe no color cost, 

Displayed a central star with petals lost ; 

Ephemeral, its fragile being fold 

Of joyless hearts, when love has left them cold. 

Polygalasf of purple crest displayed 

Their royal bloom in wood and leaf-strewn glade. 

When shone their fringy eyes up throughthe tomb 

Of last year's verdure — proof of autumn's gloom. 

When June advanced with gorgeous robes and sheen, 

And Earth re-smiled in garniture of green, 

The wild rose on the hill its blossoms gave. 

And hawthorn clusters, white as foaming wave ; 

Allien made these her toys, while fancies sweet 

♦Anemone nemorosa. t Polygala paucifolia. 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 25 

Assumed the hue of petals at her feet, 

Bright as the fragrant coronets she wove 

For her whom nature taught a daughter's love. 

Of leaves — her childhood's laurels — too, she twined 

Garlands of play her father's hat to bind, 

Eicher to him than fame's or victor's crown, — 

The love of his sweet girl was all his own. , 

She was a friend to every breathing thing : 

The tiniest life, the bird of smallest wing, 

The humming insect, — e'en the reptile's form 

Her kind, indulgent heart would weep to harm ; — 

And thus she lived, and grew, a thoughtful girl, 

With step of grace, and lip of beauty's curl, 

And love-deep dreaming eye. 

An ideal sense 
Of something faultless, Eden's fair defense, 
A creature formed for love, for grief, — for sin, — ■ 
Is woman frail and changing ; yet within 
Her ofttimes contradicted soul may rest. 
Strong faculties that wait some future test 
Storms with one stroke rend oaks in centuries grown, 
One shock, and all their gathered strength is gone 1 
So man may fall, and want the envied power 
Gently possessed by one elastic flower. 

Who knows how girlhood learns by heart its dreams, 
How fancy then paints such bewitching scenes 
Whose clouds are silken curtains, hiding more 
Than they reveal — whose faults we scarce deplore ; 



26 SONG OF THE EIVERS. 

Who knows on what a bright shore its footsteps 

stand, 
Looking afar, as toward its native land, . 
For joys unnamed, nntasted, undefined, — 
Love's gentle angels of the unscathed mind? 

The life of young Allien now more mature, 
Love's sweet mysterious desires allure 
The pure afiection of the infant heart 
To fuller, warmer, more impassioned art : 
Vaguely she estimated, but she knew 
Something there was unknown to her, so true 
Of heart delight, that once to feel its thrill, 
Was ecstacy's enslavement of the will 

The fair love-calling of her sixteenth Spring 

Causes her soul from deeper founts to sing, 

A.nd life is paradise in vistas green 

vVliose glimpses come etherial folds between. 

When sunset tells the recreative hour. 

And richer odors wander from the flower. 

More oft she seeks her favorite chosen bower ; — 

'Tis now her mother's heart begins to miss 

Her long companionship and frequent kiss, 

Forgetting, as alas ! we all forget 

That once the youth whose exile we regret 

Was but a tissue of romantic dreams, 

Of glowing thoughts and joy bewildering schemes j 

Of sympathies that sought their genial home 



SONG OF THE KIVERS 27 

In hearts as young as ours ; when we would roam 

In soft imagination's tropic bowers, 

And crown tlie brow we loved with orange flowers 

Meanwhile there came from a far distant land 

Letters, long intervals between ; — one hand, 

Obeying one true heart ne'er failed its token, — 

Its strong fraternal pledge remained unbroken, 

And from the Manor's cheery ingle-side 

A brother's love flew o'er the sea in pride j — 

Allien would listen while these pages read 

Told the brief story that some friend was dead ; 

Or wedding tales ; — of children born, or cares 

That strengthened like the wheat-besetting tares ; 

Or e'en perchance how some brave highland clan 

In battle pitched, unwavered in the van : 

And last, — disheartening hope — that still the sire, 

Trembling with age had ne'er revoked his ire. 

She listened and she sighed as memory's jewels fell,— 

Wept with her mother, why she could not tell : 

Why kindle now her soft expectant een 

To brighter flash each silken fringe between, 

While laughter curls her pretty lip with joy ■. 

Through tidings of a distant cousin-boy ? 

Young Agnes Eamsey, daughter of the swain, 
Was loved by Robert, heir of proud Glenwayne ; 
Her brow and lip — a lily and a rose ; — 
Her simple truth, the richest dowc]- ho chose. 



28 SONG OF THE RIVERg. 

Braving his father's fierce relentless pride, 

Agnes became his chosen, honored bride ; 

And exiled thus, they found a foreign home, 

From whence they sought no more o'er Earth to roam. 

A fair New-England valley thus became 

Their rest ; Glendale they called its simple name, 

But never should it know the pibrocKs sound 

On the hoarse bag-pipe's ancient mountain round ; 

Ne'er tremble 'neath the war-clan's treading shock. 

When bugle blasts re-echo from the rock. 

In signal for each hardy mountaineer 

Among the chieftain's gathering to appear. 

And these the parents of the fair Allien, 

In solitude some happiness had seen, 

Albeit the vigor and the power of thought 

Which but 'with man's more active life is brought, 

Denied, their simple lives at least were pure, 

Needing for misanthropic hearts no cure. 

Young Oscar was an heir of lordly state, 
Of halls long honored by the lineal great, 
Around which aged parks, and velvet lawns 
Swept far and near ; wiiere deer and spotted fawns 
Gamboled in freedom ; where exotics bloomed 
In vast conservatories ; — palm-trees plumed 
With rain-bows — children of a gorgeous clime, — 
The crimson cactus, oiange sweet, and lime ; 
Mimosas from Brazil, whose veins 
Recoiled as though the human touch brought stains ; 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 29 

Callas from Ethiopia's ardent river, — 

White sheaths of maiden bloom unstained, and ever ; 

And fern-acacias sweetening all the air 

Which softly slumbers in their emerald hair ; 

And there, in hours of study and of play, 

Oscar sends winged, roving thoughts away, 

Vainly imploring fancy to present 

His cousin's face to charm his discontent ; 

Mirage of childhood, ere youth's glow began, — 

Ere dignity upon his brow wrote ' Man.' 

0, such young years are purple clouds at dawn, 

Dispelling while the vision rests thereon ; 

Which life's meridian says are dreams of dreams, 

Mist-vails that glitter o'er imcertain streams I 

The iris, beauty's most transporting form. 

Not merely bounds the archway of the storm. 

But oft a dual glory it displays. 

One bow so bright it duplicates its rays ; 

Thus childhood glows, and youth, though more serene, 

Spans, like a rainbow reproduced, life's scene. 

Oscar would see Columbia's famous shore. 
Whose story time sings grandly, o'er and o'er ; 
The empire child of Briton's regime old, 
Whose sons for freedom's promise grew so bold. 
And he would meet his father's distant friends. 
Perchance by sympathy to make amends 
For isolation, loneliness and pain, 
Robert and Agnes welcomed o'er the main. 



30 



SOXG OF THE RIVERS 



Manhood has claimed the contour of his brow, — 
Youth leaves him on its daisy threshold now ; 
New scenes broad from its vine-wreathed lintels 

spread, 
He walks beneath with fragrance on his head, 
Throwing late-woven garlands lightly down, 
In bold pursuit of hope's alluring crown. 
Love with ambition speeds his buoyant feet, 
Unmingled, sphered alone, each power complete ; 
If one be deep, then is the other strong ; 
For true it is love's wakened powers belong 
To later days in some maturing hearts. 
Who feel not all their might till youth departs. 

His father's parting benediction said. 
His mother's kiss returned with absent dread 
Of hidden dangers, while the younger band 
Of wistful sisters clinging to his hand. 
Draw down his head in turn with fond embrace, 
Commingling tear with tear, with solemn face, 
And half-repenting thought, one vernal day 
From home's protecting band he breaks away. 

While parts the spray around a brave ship's prow, 

Behold him silent o'er the gunwale bow I 

Do dreams of future glory fill his brain ? 

Does aught admonish love's approaching pain? 

Or in the pride of love's parental dower. 

Still mourns his heart the tender parting hour? 

The gems that sparkle in the deeps beneath 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 31 

Recall the dew-drops trembling on the heath 

When aimless childhood trode the grass of May 

In salutation of the new-born day. 

In those declining eddies, one by one, 

Succeeding, circling, whirling, quickly gone, 

He whom no mighty rush had taught Earth's strife. 

Beheld the mimic waves of mortal life ; — 

But break not now his reveries ; the ship 

Is bounding forward with majestic dip ; 

Soon breezy days and nights of moon-light bloom 

Waft Oscar far from Scotland, friends and home. 

* Columbia I My soul approves thy righteous pride 

Thy noble right to emigration's tide, — 

Thou green-earth-bosom, — nurse for honest toil, 

The people's sovereignty, the tyrant's foil I 

But Scotia I thou immortal in thy song, 

The glory of high bards, — to thee belong 

Feelings most ardent, tributes of thy sons ; 

Now o'er thy lochs and hills my fancy runs,- 

The purple mist that vails them from the sky 

Gleams with old memories ; there heart and eye 

Gaze eloquent with homage ; truth is bright 

In time's unfolding of thy deeds of light : 

And where, o'er all the Earth, my soul, where 

Does nature so invigorate its air 

That from the poet's lyre diviner song 

Has thrilled the muses' rapt devoted throng?' 

A wilderness of domes, and spires, and walls, 



oa BONG OF THE RIVERg. 

Toward which the bark is bent, now calls 

Him from his reverie ; — to ripples blue. 

And foam-white surges, wliispers he ' adieu : ' — 

The anchor cast, tiie weary sails are furled 

Where thrift and commerce hail the Western World 

He steps upon the firm unrivaled shores 

That foster freedom's growing strength, and pours 

Emotion's tribute from a grateful heart, 

Whose beating pulse is yet untrained to art. 

Scarce time the wondrous city to survey, 

He speeds upon his love-directed way : — 

Tis June : beneath New-England's sun of gold, 

Lilac, and rose, and snow-ball blooms unfold ; 

He thinks the vales — green footstools of the hills — 

As fair as aught whereon the dew distils ; 

Their pine-crowned summits seem as near to heaven 

As barren crags Loch Lomond's storms have riven. 

Each peaceful habitation chains his view, 

Each village spire, with admiration new, 

And he exclaims, ' the pure, the true, the kind, 

Contentment's precious treasures here shall find ! ' 

Removed, in green luxurious solitude, 
Sequestered from the clustering hamlet brood. 
Beside a gentle curve the river lined, 
*Glen cottage' smiled to cheer his anxious mind: 
A mountain brooklet near it sought the tide 
Of Housatonic, stream of Indian pride ; 



SONG OF THE EITERS. 83 

And towards the East its low arched doorway met 

Morn breaking' o'er the cloudy parapet : 

Alighting- from the stage, he turned to seek, 

With wondrous eyes and story-telling cheek, 

A ' bower ' by flowering vines and boughs entwined, 

Where fair Allien in summer hours reclined : — 

Below a knoll a pathway soon he found 

Whose curvings toward the sparkling brooklet wound 

Which, where it rushed more eagerly to meet 

The river's breast, disclosed the maid's retreat 

Its low, o'erhanging boughs the waters laved, 

Around it lay a path by pebbles paved, 

And green festoons described the rustic door, 

Which passing, Oscar pressed the mossy floor. 

New scenes held no rebuke that memory claimed 

The past so sacred ; present angels named 

Advancing joys — new ties that soon will bind 

The roseate hours to leave all shade behind. 

The child of many prayers and training just. 

Not then did he forget the holy trust 

A grateful heart preserves : — He rose, imbued 

With pure resolves, by earnest prayer subdued. 

'My cousin comes,' he thought, 'each sunset hour 

Alone and pensive to this sylvan bower ; 

I'll leave a simple token for her eye, 

And hither in the day's decline I'll hie :' 

He wrote : ' Thy mother's and thy father's friend 

2* 



84 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Unasked, has ventured here his steps to bend, 
Coming from far ; — thou wilt rebuke him not ? 
meet me then in this enchanted spot, 
When sunset softens on the summit hills, 
And shadows troop along the deepening rills ; 
Here ours shall be the pledge of friendship true.' 
A curling tendril of the Virgin's Bower,* 
To tie the note with leaf and snowy flower ; 
Laid on the maple seat the strange boquet, 
And turning, slow retraced his thoughtful way 
Until the humble village inn he found, 
Wearied, to rest at noon in sleep profound. 

The royal sun gleamed in the purple west, 
Where vailing cloud-folds urged the day to rest ; 
Hushed notes of life, the herald sounds of night, 
Gave Oscar's sanguine heart a new delight, 
And now with eager pace his footsteps fly 
Toward Allien's bower in charmed credulity : 
The way not half as long as first it seemed, 
AVijile yet adjacent hills in pale rays gleamed, 
In flush of hope and dignity of pride. 
He stands again the unique tryst beside. 

Soon floating in the gentle evening breeze, 
Approaching him a snow-white scarf he sees, 
When noiseless, in a thicket near he hides. 

f Clemat's Tirgmiaua, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 35 

Arid almost guilty bis own breathing chides. 

Oh, love from infancy is part 

Of man's existence ; shed upon bis heart 

Like mist-rains to sustain the flowers 

That bless parental and fraternal bowers ; — 

In childhood, it out-flows like fountain-showers, 

More full, defined, more tangible, and warm 

When too its action is a natural charm : 

In youth it falls in periods like dews, 

But 'mid the sunshine, when the prism's hues 

Gleam from each bright division, but defy 

The prescience of the most prophetic eyo : 

In manhood 'tis a passion all controlling ; 

In age, serenity and strength, consoling. 

Allien passed by with joyous, dancing air,— 
Unseen, he saw she was supremely fair. 
The carols of the answering birdlings free 
She sang, and gushed her notes etheriall}^ ; 
Almost she seemed a muse of harmony, 
A wing-borne fairy, as she brushed aside 
Tiie lacing boughs, — a nymph of wood or tide. 

Pleasure I Art thou mere absence of distress ? 

The sunlight, not the living orb ? Dost bless 

But transiently, withdrawing, that the shade 

May fix upon the beauty thou hast made ? 

Art thou a personated power of mind 

Whose office, thoughts or words have ne'er defined? 

Not these, yet num'rous are thy imager 



36 SONG OF THE KIVERS. 

As leaves that clothe the boughs of forest trees ; 
And varying in degree, as life descends 
From God to angels, virtuous man to fiends : 
Thou hast a radiant climax in the hour 
When dignate man embraces beauty's power ; 
Clasping with condescending grace the sprite, 
Vanquished, though unacknowledged, by delight I 

Arousing from a sweet, new trance of thought, 
To make his presence known, young Oscar sought, 
And while the billet lingered in her hand. 
She bowed to see her cousin near her stand : 
Then slight as pinkwhite roses flush anew 
When o'er them gleams the sunset's red'ning hue, 
Her cheeks were heightened, and her parted lips 
No carmine bud or blossom might eclipse, 
Gave music sweeter to his charmed ear 
Than all the strains his memory could transfer . — ■ 

*If Oscar of Glenwayne, I now may greet, 
Most welcome to my father's home retreat ; — 
From childhood I have heard my cousin's name, — • 
Too happy, I respond to friendship's claim !' 
Tlien with a trusting but reserving mien. 
She placed her yielding hand his own between ; 
He gently raised the snowy pledge and prest 
Eeveriug lips, then laid it on his breast. 

Now seated by her side, the moments fly 
Too swiftly, till the darkening shadows lie, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 37 

Deep, trembling with the ripples, and no bird 

Trilling faint notes on dream-land's verge is hear'^ ", 

When not abruptly breaking from the tale 

His words have woven of his native vale, 

Or glen, o'erhung by precipice and crag, 

The terror of the foiled and hunted stag, 

The pride of one bold clan, who valiant, know, 

If needed, a sure refuge from the foe ; 

She rises, by the way the waters move, 

To lead him to the cottage home of love, 

Beside the garden wall and through the gate, 

Where in the moonlit porch her parents wait : — • 

Unconscious movements and inquiring eyes 

Betray their sudden, undisguised surprise : — 

'My father, cousin Oscar ; — mother dear, 

Behold one kindred friend has found us here 1 ' 

The twain advance with open arms to greet 

A brother's child ; — they meet as true hearts meet. 

'My boy ! thou'rt welcome here I Thy mother's eye 

Is thine. Thy brow, like her's, is arched and high, — • 

I see the classic profile of her face ; 

The outlines of thy father's form I trace : — 

How cam'st thou, boy, to seek this alien shore, 

To find thy long-lost uncle's lowly door V 

He ceased : — The matron spoke with gentle word, — 
The deeps of youth's uncovered stream were stirred : 
'Oscar, dear child of Scotia wild and blest. 
Beneath whose heather-turf my parents rest. 



38 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Whose g-owans are the brightest, and whose braes 
Were friendly in my sad complaining days ; 
AVhose ingle-sides are shrines of peace and truth, 
Which gave their radiance to my hopeful youth, — 
Wliat spirit sent thee hitherward to cheer 
These wanderers from home and kindred dear ? — 
Blessings fall lightly on thy noble head 1 
Life's softest paths thy feet perpetual tread 1 ' 

The youth possessed a glowing soul ; a will 
Subservient ever to deep feeling's thrill ; 
But eloquence of speech he boasted not, 
And for this welcome ne'er to be forgot, 
He to his aunt but courteously replied, 
Still standing by his lovely cousin's side :— 

*0, gentle aunt, if pleasure's thought is thine, 

Inspired as by reunion, more is mine, 

And tenderly I thank thy memory sweet 

For picturing all my love of home would greet 1 * 

We number . not those weeks so free from care 
And cloud, that hours and days uncounted were ; 
Nor talk of admiration, beauty, worth, 
Man's gentleness of mind, — all best on Earth 
Living in man and woman : — there's one theme 
Sustained by all, some hearts call not, * a dream ;' 
By its own name we say love dared to. own 
Secret belief that two fond hearts were one. 
Then came the parting hour, almost concealing 



SOXG Of THE RIVERS. 39 

Joy^s painted landscape, scarce hope's torch revealing; 
Two years must pass ere Oscar claim his bride, 
And take her to the manor's ingle-side ! — 
The active world between the lovers rushed, 
And by its din affection's tones were hushed. 

reader, hast thou severed trembling strings 
Which bound in love thy weary spirit's wings j 
Fibres so bliss-bestowing, yet so fine, 
Linking another's sweeter soul to thine ; 
Thrilling from pulse to pulse when barely swayed 
By world-rude questionings ; if pained, allayed 
By nought of healing that the world may boast, 
Yet cured by one warm kiss, when lips are lost • 
To individual possession, sealing 
Commingled hearts anew with truth's revealing ; — 
Severed by cold, unimaged space, though brief, 
By hope's bought promise, fear's indulged relief 1 
Then knowest thou what 'parting' means to those 
Who loving thus fail ever to disclose 
Experience to a novice : — Heaven protect 
Me from such pain I would not recollect I 

The future laird on ocean's cradling breast. 

Dim grow the shores, dissolving in the west ; 

Columbia disappears ; his silent gaze 

Far round finds nought but formless haze ; 

Blue waves beneath, blue space above, night's stars. 

Days solitary orb, horizon bars : 

These only break a long monotony, 



40 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Till weeks are passed, and storm is on the sea. 

'Man over-board !' Like thunder breaks the cry, 

But waves are wild ; the night is dark, winds high, 

And few the ears that hear the awful tale, — 

A life is swallowed by the vengeful gale I 

No arm to rescue, never known his grave, — 

Deep, dark, untroubled by the lower wave ; — 

The sailor's weeping mother, wife, or child, 

Shall never, when the airs of spring are mild, 

Plant in that death-cold, isolated spot, 

Pale violets or blue 'forget-me-not.' 

The creaking ship careens and bounds and moans ; 

The waters roar in dread affrighting tones ; — 

Anon there flashes, not the lightning's glare, 

But shooting stars amid the billows are I 

Bright phosphorescence penetrates the deep, — 

It waken's not the poor lost sailor's sleep ; 

Nor all the rattle of the rigging calls 

Him from the lower ocean's silent halls. 

Quickly he sank, his leaden journey brief, 

Unmindful of the sea-weed's mesh, or reef 

Of populous white coral cities : — Gone, 

Until the judgment day, to rest — alone. 

Diifusive halos from the storied Past, 

Through memory's aid were round Dumbarton cast, 

Enkindling by the wanderer's return 

Ardor that but in patriot breasts may burn. 

He pauses on the silver-limpid Clyde, 



SONG OP THE RIVERS. 41 

And sweeps his eye o'er mount and moor-field wide j — 

Upwelling tears of gratitude and joy 

Unite man's impulse to the former boy : — > 

' 0, never may my steps, a pilgrim, roam 

From thee my fatherland, my glorious home I 

Most eloquent, heroic, truth declares 

High deeds inspired by thy pure mountain airs ; — 

In loyal hearts that swell in pride for thee, 

There lives the innate strength of liberty I — 

Thou future I show by page or magic glass, 

My life by God decreed, with thee to pass I 

Shed radiance on its brinks of danger ; sweep 

Their clustering roses down, lest I may sleep 

Too near destruction's pit, and in despair 

Discover but too late I'm rolling there I 

Ah ! wisdom hath such fearful power withheld, 

Lest many a hope of virtue be dispelled, 

And present time, inert with clouds of woe, 

Hold back progressive life, or still its flow , 

Annihilating faith with double gloom. 

Making bright hope a shadow of the tomb. 

Forbid it God, — the impious wish exprest 

To fathom secrets of thy Triune breast ; — 

The humble acquiescent of thy will, 

My eyes unveiled, my destiny fulfil.' 

Thought's course is changed : with vigor speed his feet 
Toward ancient walls in view, where waters meet 
Around the castle's base, and shine away 



42 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Far north, where waits the bosom of Achray. 
We may not count the joy his presence gives 
When friends at home behold that Oscar lives. 

One after one the zodiacal train 
With each peculiar dress robed hill and plain; — 
June roses died ; red clover blooms grew sear ; 
Dim leaves foretold the autumn of the year 
When bright eyed asters wore the varying tinge 
Of distant skies upon their starry fringe. 
Afar along the hills the crimson glow 
Of dying verdure faded, dull and slow, 
The evening airs spread cooler round the rill, 
And in the pastures morning dews were chill. 
Rich fields of golden grain above the glen 
Had ripened, and were stored in Darn and pen ; 
No more was seen the tasselled crowns of maize,— 
They were dethroned amid the August days, 
Their yellow treasures for the future stored 
Where plenty smiled upon the shining hoard. 

Its breath absorbed by the o'erpowering blast, 
Grand Autumn to the unknown mist land passed ; 
Wrinkled and brown a few lone leaves were left, 
Trembling on boughs December had bereft. 
Allien is loLely now ; she hails the star 
Each night which shines o'er Oscar's path afar, — 
Arcturus 'mong his dimmer suns, benign. 
Above the dark-robed firs, — a gem divine, — 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 43 

In briglit companionsliip, though lower down, 
With Cynosure upon the zenith's crown, 
And oft when Luna's silver draperies shed 
A magic radiance on her curtained bed, 
Her eye-lids, like half-yielding sentries, start 
At some new strain love wakens from her heart. 

0, Love is like a wandering bird 

In search of sunny skies ; 
It echoes far, its echoes heard, 

Then echo-like it flies ! 

Unmeasured in the flight of mind, 

JSTo rest it deigns to claim ; 
It roams afar its mate to find, 

And asks no boon of Fame. 

0, name not Love a fearless child — ■ 

Remembrancer of fears I — 
Dead leaflets show where roses smilcd,-^- 

On these love sheds its tears. 

Thou vernal consciousness of life, 

Too blooming long to last, — 
Sweet lisping tenderness of strife, 

Preceding sorrow's blast I 

Allien, recall thy roving dreams, 

Thy heart needs rest again ; 
Prepare to meet revulsive streams, 

To nurse affection's pain ! 



44 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

The wind blew shrill one cloudy day ; 
Within the cot a sufferer lay, 
Whose tide of life was ebbing slow, — 
Well-nigh congealed its purple flow ; 
Now watchers o'er the couch bend low 
And words of faint farewell are said 
Ere death rests on a father's head. 

That mother taught by years of toil 
From heart-rebellion to recoil. 
While griefs their shadows round her bind, 
Has one resource for heart and mind : 
Bright Faith illuminates the tomb, 
And bears her spirit from its gloom, 
And on each image of the dead 
Does love divine its glory shed. 

\ Allien beneath this weight of grief 
First flutters like an aspen leaf ; 
Unused to sorrow's crushing air. 
Her prayers are breathings of despair : 
Her hopes of bliss are all undone 
That he, her father dear, is gone ; 
The one heart left her now to love 
Is mild and faithful as tlie dove, 
And tenderly her being clings 
To her protecting mother's wings. 

As time moved on with noiseless stride, 
Nearer to Spring's unfolding pride, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 45" 

Before some fag-g-ots blazing bright 
They sat alone one chilly night. 
Allien the silence broke : — ' The time 
Is long since Oscar left our clime I 
Four dreary months, and yet no word 
To me has come, — no spirit bird I 
My heart in this is doubly sad,— 
Hopes all too bright at first I had ; — 
I sometimes fear his mute form sleeps 
In ocean's dark unyielding deeps/ 

'My daughter, find thy fullest joy in prayer, 

Nor ever of the future hope too much : 

Suffer not doubt to darken present good ; 

Committed to thy Savior's care, thy days 

Shall each unite — a golden link to bind 

Thy thoughts of happiness, — immortal hopes/ — 

The post-boy broke the earnest scene, — 
*A letter here for Miss Allien 1' 
She caught the treasure with a smile, — 
Unconscious tears gushed forth the while ; 
She quickly broke the scarlet seal 
Love's faithful story to reveal. 
Anxious and tenderly she read ; 
Hope burned anew, — he was not dead. 

'Allien ! I met thee long ago in thought — 
In childhoud's rosy morn, before the sun 



46 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Of youth dispelled the infant dews that lay 

On every reaching tendril of my heart, 

Shining", each one a sphere of crystal joy I 

And these v^ere dreams of day as we 1 as night : — 

My mother's nursery tales, in glowing hues, 

Drew pictures of a little blue-eyed girl 

Who lived the wide, wide field of waters o^er, 

In a far land, so vast ^twas little known. 

Whose father hence had roamed in other times, 

The still dear scion of our noble line. 

I thought I loved my cousin then, and wild, 
Sweet fancies filled my brain ; I thought to see 
That little one in future days. In time 
I thought to find those flowery wilds, and bring 
The bloom most fair to our paternal home. 

Swift years flew by ; I found the treasure, Bird 
Of Paradise to me ; mine, only mine. 
Kind fairies I make a plume of every tress, 
And then my love will fly to me. She would 
Not pause till o'er the hills around this glen. 
To rest her fluttering wings, impatient still ; 
Caledonia's air would give them glorio\is hues. 
And my own breast her panting heart restore. 
Now come ; and on the heather's bank I'll meet 
My bird of love I Our clasping selves, ordained 
For one pure end, one living sphere of bliss, 
Shall move toward perfect being — life eterne. 

'Tis long since we were parted, love I I passed 
My homeward journey safely ; — As I breathe 



SONG OF THE RIVEPwS. 4l 

My native air I deem it purer tlian 
Before my wandering ; — Life is strong ; — I wait 
Sweet tidings, words of tenderness and truth 
From thee, my own ! — I am forever thine/ 

December's Borean breezes blow, 

Dead leaves are sepulchered in snow : 

Among the tufts of gloomy pines 

Funereal wail the spirit-winds ; , 

Proud Nature Summer's requiem sings. 

And on the earth its vendure flings. 

Spring, Summer, Autumn, passed away, 

And sweet Allien this many a day 

Has hoped, and sighed, and mourned in vain, 

For she has learned the fatal pain 

Of dread suspense that quells the fire 

Anticipation and desire 

May feed in hearts that early love. 

When nought untoward may reprove, 

While as mid ruins, one dark thought 

Mingling one shadow more, has brought 

A chillier air, an added gloom. 

Presaging sorrow in her home. 

Maternal joy and love and worth 

Briefly illume its lonely hearth ; 

For paler grow her mother's cheeks, — 

Iler languid step a tale bespeaks 

Which had her eye no power to read, 

Her heart vv^crc happier indeed. 



48 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

When gloomy sounds the branches bare 
Are beating 'gainst the frosty air, — 
While rest the streams in silver chains, 
And freezing drops glaze o'er the panes, — 
When hemlock boughs before the sky 
In outlines dark sway gloomily ; — 
When night has drawn its inner vail, 
And stars if seen are glimmering pale, 
Before their ruddy open fire 
They feed the intellect's desire. 

Allien, with gently varying mood, 
Reads of the wise, the great, the good. 
Whose lives in grandeur thread the Past, 
And bright, or soft reflections cast 
Along the ever-rolling stream 
In whose deep current thought and dream 
Become engulfed, from age to age, 
Till history reveals the page. 

They delve in old Castile romance, 
In tales of red crusader's lance, 
Read Cceur-de-Lion's short-lived fame, 
Or how Columbus won a name ; — 
Of mystic times of Rome and Greece ; 
Of oriental wars and peace ; 
Melancthon, Luther, Cromwell bold, 
And Semiramis' reign of old ; 
Of Switzer peaks ; of Scottish fell ; 
Of' Alfred, Wallace, Bruce and Tell; 



SOiN'G OF THE RIVERS. 

Of Alexander's young campaign, 

And Caesar's glory-thirsting reign ; 

Of Henry Eighth's remorseless part, 

To marry wives, and break each heart ; 

Of Cleopatra, Egypt's queen, 

With splendid, cold and haughty mien, 

Whose life and suicidal end 

Dark shadows to her memory lend ; 

And of that gentle Roman wife* 

Who gave the noble Gracchi life. 

And, when the nights were calm and still, 
When moonbeams lit each snow-crowned hill. 
And winter shone in beauty cold, — 
When back was prest each curtain's fold 
That in might flow the lustrous stream. 
The songs of bards became their theme. 

They almost hear the breathing lyre 

Of Avon sound again. 
Or feel wild Ossian's wandering flro. 

And Spencer's holy strain. 

Quaint Francis Quarles they knew and read^ 

With songs of Scotland old. 
Which pictured how her warriors bled 

In fray, and battle, bold. 



♦ Cornelia Gracchus, daitglitcr of Scip'o Africanus. 
3 



49 



50 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

From sa^e old Homer's classic tide 
They learned how Grecians warred : — 

They loved the harp of Israel, tried 
By David, matchless bard 1 

Petrarca^s numbers thrilled anew 

Life's wearied, languid lyre 
And hope revived as Dante true 

Re-kindled love's dim fire. 

Mild Tasso, like his native skies, 
Lent heaven's pure glow to thought, 

And from blind Milton's poet eyes 
Flashed gleams their spirits caught. 

Thus Winter passed away ; mild Spring began 
To woo the blossoms forth ; new waters ran 
In liquid light and free ; — last year's decay 
Oblivious grew beneath the smile of May, 

Glen-Cottage stood in sunshine, but within 
There lurked a shadow : one sweet face grew thin, 
One form its slower step betrayed ; some eyes 
Brightened like stars of their own native skies. 

Dear Mother, why so oft that tearful cheek 

When pressed on mine I Not now as once you speak ; 

Your sweet caress is still all tenderness, 

But oh ! those mournful tears my hopes oppress. 

Each kiss I leave upon your calm pale brow, 

Seems one the less cold fate will there allow ; — 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 51 

I shrink, yet if an orphan's lot be mine 
The Lord forbid my stricken heart to pine, 
Must I without one parent's gentle care, 
Endure alone the world's unfriendly air V 

O'ercome by sorrow, here she ceased the strain 
And silence but increased the mutual pain, 
Till words incited from the mother's lips, 
Like shades penumbral in the sun's eclipse, 
A darkening circle seemed more clear to bind 
Around the faith-star of her daughter's mind. 

'My child, 'twas ever thy lost father's care, 
And mine, to plant the germs of holiness 
AVithin thy virgin heart for future bloom ; 
To give thee early knowledge of commands 
The wise Creator has imposed on all 
The creatures of his power and love. Thou art , 
Responsible for every act,— for thought 
Of sin, if cultivated or indulged ; 
And such are enemies to happiness. 
This world is not a place for hopeless gloom ; 
A heart desiring good, a life of prayer. 
And sweet submission to the laws of life. 
Shall reap the fruits of peace— perpetual smiles 

Thou art a dear and duteous child ;-— some pangs 
Assail my erring heart when pressed with thoughts 
That soon my failing form must yield its breath 
To angel ministry, to conduct safe, 
In all its disembodied, fluttering sense 



52 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Of mysteries immortal, opening strange 
But, oh I I will submissively resign 
My darling to the orphan's Friend ; — Few years 
At most I'll meet thee, dear, in Paradise ; 
To God I trust thy promise ; — For some high 
And useful end my only child will live. 

Be true to Oscar. When the time expires, 
Thy nuptials consummated, freely go 
Where e'er thy husband's way of life may lead ; 
Where e'er thy husband's home, that home be thine ; 
Thy duties be thy joys, with cheerful step, 
Whether in humble or exalted walk — 
Let all thy acts be true to woman's trust. 

Sometimes, Allien, does love forget its trutn, 
When all its early glow grows dim and chill ; 
When new and dazzling pictures charm the heart ; — 
cultivate the violets of faithfulness, — 
Let no suspicious T^eed their growth obscurer 

Work faithfully, wait patiently, and God 
Thy destiny shall mark and guide, nor thou 
Canst change, nor still the flutter of one leaf 
Of life, or hue of one sweet flower of joy, 
Onaided by Omnipotence and prayer ; — , 

May wisdom be reflected in thy soul I ' 

In still mysterious fall to Earth, 
Like thoughts that own a heavenly birth, 
A mantle draped the ground one night 
In soft surprise of flaky white. 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 53 

Each porous, fair, adhering part 

Was fashioned with unlettered art ; 

In one pure vesture all combined, 

As thoughts weave textures for the mind. 

All unexpected!}^ it fell 
Wlien vernal blooin lit up the dell ; 
AVIien balmy airs had lent their breath 
To frosts benighted on the heath ; — 

While Ma}' was whispering of June, 
But ere the earnest gaze of noon 
It melLed silently away, 
Symbol of beauty's swift decay. 

Glen-Cottage, ere that day was gone, 
Sent forth a deeply sorrowing moan • — 
As soft as melt tlie vernal snows, 
As dew falls on a chaliced rose, 
\s calm as floats the evening's breath 
A mother passed awav in death. 

A few low words and all was still 
As winter-chains may bind a rill ; 
In sweet arrangement on her breast 
Her small cold hands were laid to rest; 
But wakened by the sun of Heaven, 
A glad immortal action given, 
Her spirit soared above the skies 
Completer powers to exercise ; — 
She Dassed in faith serene away,^ 



e. SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

04 



Her night of life awoke to-day, 

'My mother ! Art thon gone ! 0, speak ! 
Alas ! there's coldness on thy cheek. 
Dear mother, look once more, once more, 
Upon thy loving child — once more I 
No, no, my heart, it cannot be ; 
These eyes will ope no more on me. 
Remains there in this clouded world 
A guardian for thine orphan girl?' — 
Then burst her grief in tears like rain, 
And failed her tongue to end the strain, 
While o'er the lifeless form she bent 
In sorrow's crushed abandonment. 
Till soft and gentle arms removed 
Her from the one she best had loved. 

The village of the dead ! — AVhat solemn air, 
What silent gloom its habitudes declare I 
There swaying daisies have a paler crown ; 
Tliere bends the Babylonian willow down ; 
Carnation blooms have there a sickly smell ; 
There grasses an ephemeral lesson tell, 
And ever with the grave-yard's gloom 
Associates the brier's* pale-hued bloom. 

0, I remember, when a truant child. 
[ dared not pluck the berries red and wild 

♦itosarubiginoBa 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 65 

The strawberries ripening on each deathly mound, 
The consecrated place was so profound. 

Ah ! children have strange senses unexplained 
Whose influence is after long retained ; 
Call them not vagaries, nor passing dreams, 
They're life's reflections on its morning streams 

Mournfully, mournfully, tolls the village bell ; 
Slow dying murmurs sink in copse and and dell ;— 
Now slowly, slowly, winds a measured train 
Around the hill, above the river plane. 
Nearer and nearer to the black-edged gates, 
Where narrow and damp a hollow grave awaits 
Ah ! who has fastened wide the portals back ? 
Did spectral Death precede the mourners' track ? 

Among the mossy tablets lettered old, 
Where life's brief histories are quaintly told. 
The mute procession winds ; the hearers pause ; — 
A hand has oped the Book of Love and Laws, 
And heads uncovered, list with solemn trust, — 
*A11 flesh is grass,' and, ' dust returns to dust,' 
Pronounced by reverent lips. A prayer arose, 
And then a sound that every mourner knows : 
Dull, rattling clods upon the coflSn spread, 
And rising winds mourn sadder — for the dead 

Amid the ills that life's footsteps attend 
The young and pure may never want a friend 
The orphan in the pastor's cottage finds 
The warm devotion of congenial minds ; 



56 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Benignant love and sweet untiring care 
Protect her from the world's unhallowed air ; 
Parental and fraternal love disclose 
New pleasures, softening all her early woes, 
While as from each departed dear one's tomb 
New flowers give promise of celestial bloom. 

'Helen/ adopted sister of Allien, 

Was beautiful as Sparta's erring queen, 

Whom Trojan Paris with delusive art 

wUlured from Menelaus' home and heart. 

Ber eyes were changeful in their brilliant hue, 

Dark flashing, hazel-brown, or azure-blue. 

Piquant in smile, and liquid in repose, 

Kindling when song from other lips arose 

A. fleecy cloudlet was her silken hair, 

Whose floating meshes, kissed by sunbeams, were 

Entanglements delightful round the hand 

Possessed through aid of some enchanter's wand ; 

So like the skies of April, — tear-suffiised I 

Her brow by frowns o'er-cast, — her smiles unused 

Through transient grief; — a sunbeam, or kind tone. 

The spell was broken, and the shadow gone I 

Of mediocral grade her lively mind, 

Her heart was all affection if combined, 

The sweet approvals flattery interweaves, 

Trembling in happiness like breath-stirred leaves. 

The captive of anticipations bright. 

She ill could bear their shading into night, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 5t 

Nor calmly walked where disappointment led, 
So rich the feasts on which her fancy fed. 



A brother's heart ! — 0, tis a holy shrine, 
Where kindred love is near to love divine I 
Unselfish, free from passion's dross, as dew 
Is pure at dawn, as noon-day skies are blue. 
The cascade's foam is free, so this from weight 
Of all dark mixture ; it can ne'er create 
Regret, distrust, or weariness, or sigh ; 
And more, a brother's love may never die. 
'T was new. Allien to its consoling power 
Was passive as the mountain hair-bell flower, 
When wandering sunbeams find its purple cheek, 
And cause its own pure radiance to speak. 



Adoption !— More than natural ties 'tis strong 
To bind congenial hearts like notes in song, 
Wlieu every stir of thought and feeling owns 
^[cludious brotherhood of dulcet tones ; 
AVlien spirit floats with spirit, as one wave 
Of love's eternal tide their free hopes lave ; 
When just to feel we know another's bliss 
Is full enough for kindred happiness. 
Affinities of mind are stars in dreams, 
So rare few souls discern and feel their beams ; 
One sinless pair, one Eden, and one fall. 
Have brought the hope, — the seeming to us all. 



53 S0NG OF THE RIVERS. 

Warm Summer floats again her languid air, 
Through tissued cloud and silent space, as sails 

The peai'ly nautilus on waters, where 

Hushed ripples cover ocean's slumbering gales. 

High Nature's worshipers may tune their lyres, 
Of joy's ideal profusion rapturous sing, 

To mitigate life's wild and feverish fires. 

While love-flushed fancy may repose her wing. 

The artist, faithful to his given powers, 

May roam the wide expanse of hill and plain, 

"With fond allurements win the rosy hours. 
And reproduce the forms of beauty's train. 

The poet's sweet perceptions newly wake, — 
Mysterious alcoves lure his radiant dreams, 

Where subtile forms ambrosial feasts partake. 
And hope quaff's love's exhilarating streams. 

From the deserted cot across the stile. 

Beyond the hamlet's bound, along the brook, 
Allien's adopted home was just a mile, — 

One early morn her footsteps sought the nook ; 
One mute companion of her lonely way. 

The favorite dog whose speaking eyes surveyed 
With instinct bright, and s^^mpathetic play, 

The gentle features of the thoughtful maid. 
Where thriving shrubs in tangled masses grew 

Around her once frequented, well-pruned bower, 



SONG OP THE RIVERS. 69 

With casual pause, and sad, slow step she drew, 

Her memory quickening with grief's painful power. 
Withdrawing from her breast a treasured page. 

She pressed some foliage down which caught her 
tear, 
And sought a few calm moments to engage, — 

No eye but one from heaven beheld her there. 
'T was Oscar's message, and the only one, 

Tear-stained, read often, dear and always new ; 
The period of betrothal now was gone. 

His step came not, — her heart believed him true, — 
when will love its early hopes resign ? 

When young affection's tendrils cease to weave 
Illumined wreaths which oft so briefly shine, 

Fading a fragile ruin but to leave I 

Behold a living drama of this age I 

The last brave act will soon forever close ; 
Its stormy scenes and glittering icy stage 

Were laid mid solitudes of Arctic snows. 
Aurora Borealis arched the dome, 

Darting its painted changing lustres down 
To gild the region of the north-winds home, 

Where Winter never doffs his diamond crown : 
The throngs who gazed looked far o'er land and sea, 

Science a fadeless flag o'er all unfurled. 
While noble Franklin's knell met solemnly 

Applauding echoes trembling through the world. 
No gold weighed down the balance when his fate 



CO SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Was undetermined in the lapse of years, 
For Lady Franklin, rich in love's estate, 

Still hoped and sought through all her gloomy fears, 
A woman true, her tireless efforts prove 

A spectacle for every age, sublime ; 
Th' eternal constancy of holy love 

Which braves the icebergs and the seas of time. 

Now sunbeams passing from a special bound, 

Oft marked before, are signal for return; 
Allien, roused by the purling streamlet's sound, 

Shuts back these memories in her heart's deep urn; 
Her trembling lips grow calm ; a precious sense 

Of God's protecting and supernal will 
Becomes her tender spirit's firm defense, — 

Divinely given pledge for future ill. 

She walks the garden path ; the broken gate 

No more a barrier its form conceals 
Neath wild exuberance — a weedy state ; 

The bushy flat still here and there reveals 
The serrate leaflets of the damask rose, 

Craving of unpruned nature its consent, 
A few more buds and blossoms to disclose, 

Though on the desert air their sweets be spent. 
She lifts the rusted latchet, slowly through 

The dusky entry walks and meets still airs 
Impregnated with damps and vapors blue ; — 

Each wall a high and dim festooning wears, — 
Not Gobelin fabric, fabulous in price, 



SONG OF THE KIVERS. 61 

But liung", as if in mockery of taste, 
With cobwebs, woven in looms of strange device 

By noiseless beings, and in secret placed. 
She sounds her parents' names in failing tones, 

Tjie haunted roof responds in echoes drear ; 
The spirit of the blackened chimney moans, — ■ 

Eemembrance sighs j love murmurs, 'they're nou 
here I ' 
Her steps are backward turned; a long 'farewelP 

Escapes her lips : 'No more my feet shall tread 
This hallowed ground, — too mournful weighs the 
spell, — 

Where e'er I roam my heart may weep its dead/ 

Cheery the gambols of the dog; from sight 

The sun behind the evening's vesture bowed ; 
Birds sought their coverts for the coming night, — 

Soon all is mute within its mystic shroud : 
As one by one the burnished stars appear. 

To crown the dome's o'ershadowing expanse, 
The world is sleeping ; heaven seems more near, — 

Shaded and shining, waiting morning's glance. 

Bidding good-night to hope and the celestial host, 
Allien sinks soon and sweetly to repose ; 

And now she wanders on a darkened coast. 
Unconscious how the risen moonlight glows ; 

The roar of many swelling waves combined 
Sends mornful music o'er the distant leas ; 

Afar across the waters, lone, defined. 



62 SOXG OF TEE RIVERS. 

A meteor — a glimmering light she sees. 
It sinks, anon it rises from the tide ; 

Each time it seems more near, more brightly shines ; 
Its flickering gleams disclose the ocean wide, 

But far before no pebbly shore defines. 
She stands transfixed, her straining eyes intent, 

And knows nor what, nor why the potent charm j — 
Now o'er the sea the sky seems darker bent, — 

A strengthening breeze is herald for the storm. 
Along the lea, among the pine-boughs dark, 

A lounder wail is sounding, o'er and o'er j 
More often disappears the meteor-spark, 

The angry tide is sweeping up the shore ; 
Hoarse thunders in the darkness roll away, 

And fearless Tritons rise in self defense ; 
But soon allied, they with the billows play, 

Lest Neptune's frowns betray his ire intense. 
No slavish fears assail her courage there ; 

Still firm she stands and all the storm defies, 
Beholds the light again to leeward bear, — 

It comes more near j it rises to the skies. 

Then rose the curtains of the hall of sleep ; — 
The maiden opes her wondering eyes to view * 

The calm and starry night, almost to weep 
O'er visions waking sense v/ould not renew. 

The world is silent ; — Midnight reigns ; 
Within her windows, all unshaded, falls 

A flood of silver bloom the moon sustains ; 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. G3 

The hills stand guarding all the dells and vales ; 
Soft slumbers soon again her eyelids close, — 

Now undisturbed her conciousness is lost, 
Till o'er the Eastern heights break sunny glows, 

Whose shades withdrew as Day the valley crost. 

Morning! — 'Tis said the shades of evening seem 

Propitious most to love's imparting dream ; 

That sighs are softer then, and kisses mute, — 

Love's ripened figs — unblighted, timely fruit ; 

That whispers have more meaning when the stir 

Of life is hushed ; that gentler, lovelier. 

Is beauty's cheek and brow, in night's pale wreath ; 

And so 't is fitting time for love to breathe 

Its monosyllable requests and vows, 

When hands and lips unite, and brows meet brows. 

But morning hours for love of mine ; when care 
May not oppress one ripple thought may bear ; 
When weariness is an unmeaning sound 
To hearts all music, sleep a word profound. 

So thought young * Mortimer.' — A shaded seat 
Had checked the wandering of some happy feet ; 
And while the river mirrored light and morn, 
And redder grew the berries of the thorn, 
He prest the maiden's hand and sought her eyes ; — 
The rainbow wreath that in one sunbeam lies, 
A crystal prism surely will reveal, 
And while the morning zephyr seeks to st:al 
The lily from her cheek and kiss her eye. 



64 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

He speaks of love — not love's fraternih^. 

Serene lias been their converse ; cliildren each 
Of favoring Nature, lessons she would teach 
With all her beauty, mystery of form, 
Wildness and freedom, sleeping strength, or storm, 
Find quick acceptance in their gentle souls. 
Mingling as wave to wave together rolls • 
Congenial in enjoyment, treasuring 
Each one alike the happiness they bring. 

' Sweet friend, our parting hour is neai at hand, 
When I must hasten to a far-off land, 
Crossing the distant Mississippi's flood, 
Where savage wild, dim wilderness, and wood, 
Must be my portion, happiness and home ; — 
And must I there with no companion roam? 

That we do love each other, nature owns, — 
Let one sweet word bear witness through thy tones ! 
A missionary's wife ! Such offering speaks 
No splendid state for thee, but true love seeks 
From my devoted spirit to sustain 
Thy trusting heart in every careorpain ; 
0, more than friend I No words can tell 
How well I love thee, — 'tis almost too well I' 

Silent a moment ; — 'twas a strange new charm 
That clasped her being with his gentle arm ; 
She did not know 'twas more than all before. 
Thought hastened far — beyond Atlantic's shore, — 
Long months, the fever of suspense, the tears 



SONG OP THE RIVERS. 65 

In silence fallen, unbestowing- years, 

To love's solicitude no answer gave ; 

Back from the past, back o'er the blue-deep wave, 

Her fretted spirit almost willing came, 

Just outside Eden, breathing a new name, 

Reaching for new-blown flowers, that o'er the wall 

Of maidenly reserve escaped the thrall ; — 

Such silence seals afSance, — not alway, 

And light fast streaming toward the noon of day 

Wakes one from bliss, and one to duty's line. 

She whispering, 'sister, only such I'm thine.' 

*My love, alas I misled by its own light, 
A meteor to break upon my future's night 
Again and oft again, when thoughts of theo 
Through sacrificial toil sigh tenderly I 
Farewell, my own I before the morrow's dawn. 
Ere yet thy slippered feet have prest the lawn, 
Friends, home and thee, I leave, to meet no more, 
Perchance till Earth and time's receding shore 
Are to the winging soul a fleck, a vapor dim ; 
Their memories like bell-tones lost, or hymn 
Of melody and discord, long ago ; 
Yes, thus — alone — in silence, thus I go; 
But some day, dearest, I shall call thee— mine; — 
A hidden diamond ne^er forgets to shine.^ 

*Hail, mystic Night 1 Time's reaching strand 
Bounds far away thy shadowy land, 



66 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Where all the future's pregnant days 
Sleep, warmed with hope's half latent rays ! 

*I love thy silent mysteries 
As well as day which dazzling flies, 
Expansive from the burning fount, 
Embracing sky, and plain, and mount. 

'Float on unseen, ye soundless airs, 
While night her sable drapery wears ; 
Vibrate from mountain hight to dell, 
And cradle still the fancy's spell 1 

*Ye rivulets, in soft emprise 
While now ye meet from Dian's eyes 
A tide of lustres dreaming down, 
Through quiet shades move stiller on I 

* While Nature's heart is still like death, 
Ye leafy branches, wake no breath, 
Nor let your birdling brood prolong. 
Aloud one note of dreamy song. 

*Ye living forms, in slumber's play 
Oblivious breathe the hours away ; 
Like ice-concealed, still-moving streams, 
Sleep through your unremembered dreams f 

*Hail, mystic Night I Thy soothing care, 
Thy gentle shades, what soul would spare? 
Congenial to my mournful moods 
Are thy subduing solitudes I ^ 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 61 

Thus Mortimer at midnight mused alone, 
While the ascending glory of the moon 
Streamed through his casement, paling stars, 
Fringing th' horizon's distant ebon bars. 
[ We leave him now ; at morn he went his way, 
Heaven-guided by religion's fadeless ray. 

Another moon had raised its shining head 
Above the forest, by bright Venus led ; — 
A few calm summer days had glided on 
Since pensive Mortimer from home had gone ; — 
A thousand locusts beat their winglets thin. 
And chirping crickets mingled in the din ; 
Insects unnamed their symphonies prolong, 
And katy-dids their persevering song ; 
The early evening, mild and musical. 
Brought peace to all the dwellers of the vale. 

*Allie ! Dreaming here alone ? 

I have sought you round and round ; 
I've a letter for your eye I 

Is it worth a pin, or pound ? 

'Kiss me, that 'tis worth, I know! 

It has crossed the ocean far, 
As the foreign post-marks show ;— 

Sister, dear, how strange you are I 

'Never tell us aught about 

Lover true across the sea, — - 



68 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Of a gallant knight away, 
Seeking deeds of chivalry I' 

Thus gamboled Helen, but a heart unstrung, 
Unprisoned, to her happy sister clung, — 
Unburdened hitherto, through sympathy ; 
Its waves unchided overflowing free. 
Grief, startled memory, acknowledged love — 
What tides through broken barriers to move ! 

A page of death — brief tale. An o'erwrought hear 
Waiting and trusting long. The mortal smart, 
Pressure of disappointment, waste of hope ; — 
In these were powers like those which cope 
With nature's sturdiest forms. In vain the flower 
Might gently bend in that o'erwhelming hour : 
Love's joy-supporting though sequestered flow 
Suppressed as suddenly as one might throw 
A shadow o'er a glass ; its backward rush 
The blossoms on its living borders crush, 
"Widening, irregular, of destiny 
The sport, until subsiding soon, it be 
W^ithin itself, o'erspent, waveless, all calm, 
Portending, yet so still ! No offered balm 
Of kindness now can work its magic there ; — 
Life totters, apathy succeeds despair. 

Oscar was gone. One stroke of a terrific storm 

Mangled in death his noble, manly form j 

Amid the Highlands in a summer's day, ^ 



SONG OF THE MVER&. C9 

AVith one companion of his pleasure-way, — 
One weeping friend to place upon his horse 
His master's nerveless, uncommanding corse, 
And to his fatlier be its mournful guide ; 
To turn in mute emotion thence aside 
From grief too sudden in its anguish-blow 
For any friend's commiseration now, 
He went to that mysterious, endless bourn 
From whence no traveller's step may e'er return. 

* * * * Thus, ' life is but a span I ' 
Thus God disposes self-proposing man I' 

Recovering slowly from a bed of pain," 
The orphan saw the smiling world again ; 
Awakened from the fever's burning grasp. 
She caught the autumn flowerets in her clasp. 

Upon the record of one human breast 
'T is well the cold world's eyes may never rest ; 
Strange marks are there. Earthquakes break granite 

rocks 
In crevices, with their portending shocks. 
Which centuries spread wide but never bind, 
And so recurring showers, frost and wind, 
Define each angle, curve, and groove, and stain, 
For future time's observance ; and the train 
Of sorrow's forces, pleasure's pang, or thrill 
Of joy, deep lines the heart without its will. 
When clasping some sweet knowledge as our own, 
How breathes the soul in fondness, 'mine alone 1' 



70 SONG OF THE RR^EKS. 



And when a wound no mortal can allay 
Trembles behind reserve, rebuked the ray- 
That from inquisitive design or art, 
Would cheat the secret from the closing heart. 

Allien resisted all inquiring thought 

Which to unseal love's sacred volume sought; 

Gently accepting kind solicitude 

Venturing in delicacy, never rude. 

Duty becoming her controling rule, 

We find her mistress of the village school ; — 

Spring come again, each morn with blooming cheeks 

Its lowly roof, with cheerfulness she seeks. 

It stood beside the base of a green hill 

Which sloped above the pond and homely mill 

Whose rustic, garrulous industry, heard 

Far o'er the valley, almost scared the bird, 

When undesigning pinions toward it flew ; 

AVhose early morning bell disturbed the dew 

By steps industrious, mingling its bright spheres 

In shallow streams, as joy sometimes appears. 

A few tall poplars were its pillars green, 
A few wild-rose shrubs scattering between ; 
One apple-tree an orchard had discarded. 
Whose yearly fruit was by the urchins guarded, 
Marking the northern bound of its arrear, — 
These its adornments made the play-ground dear. 
But 0, how oft the weak, provoking kite, 
Failing to soar, in poplar-boughs would light ! 



SONG OF THE RIVEE3. 71 

How would small fingers stained in Juno with red, 

Oft for the thorn-surrounded roses plead I 

How soon May's fairy apple-blossoms sought, 

Their falling petals told of ruin brought I 

And these were childhood's woes 1 They broke no 

rest; 
But while their tumults stirred the little breast, 
The shadows still were dark, the pangs were deep ; 
Precursors of those torturers that creep 
Insidiously, or boldly, bidding man 
Their use and ultimate designs to scan. 

A summer day was near its hushing close, 
Young zephyrs whispered to the sleeping rose, 
A fleecy panoply half veiled the west, 
Shading the fainting lily's snowy crest ; 
The clouds were painted in a hundred dyes,— 
Some bore the silver of the noontide skies, 
Some caught the fiery sunset's growing flame, 
Commingling sapphires for the daylight's wane ; 
Allien had lingered round her temple long, 
And now her voice awakes to joyous song ; 
Two happy girls by sweet impulse attend 
Her presence, and their artless voices blend 
With her pure, free and peace-inspiring strains 
That through the air float softly o'er the plains, 

*0, joyously the summer hours 

Are welcoming the night I 
0, tenderly the shrinking flowers 



72 SONG OF THE RR^ERS. 

Close in their nectars bright ! 
And fairies flit through sylvan shade, 
In moonlight's silver robes arrayed. 

* 0, gladly welcome we the time 
When cares distract no more 1 

Our souls are peaceful as the clime 
Of the Elysian shore, 

And gentle raptures thrill the breast, 

While nature seeks her holy rest/ 

Sinks into silence each soft sound, 
While dampness gathers on the ground, 
And falling shades more vaguely green, 
Render the forest's leafy screen. 

The children clasp their teacher's hands, 
Or bend upon the stream's moist sands 
To seek in the receding light 
Smooth pebbles, mottled, gray or white. 

'Melissa,' youngest of the two, 
With curling hair and eyes of blue, 
Fearless because her heart so young 
No danger knows, no grief has sung, 
Has 'neath a shrub's deceptive shade 
One step too near the waters moide j — 
From an unconscious reverie 
Allien is startled by one cry, 
As if a cherub's voice had lent 
Its tone to terror — quickly spent. 



SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 13 

One instant, — by the passing tide 

She stands, perplexed, o'erwhelmed, defied ; 

So swiftly has the current wild 

Borne from her reach the lovely child I 

Long seconds measure her despair, 

As far her voice disturbs the air, 

Till like the breaking of a dream, 

A stranger plunges in the stream I 

Suspense — 0, terrible its weight I 
Till heavy on the broken slate, 
The man drew near with burdened arms, 
Soothing but deepening love's alarms. 

Than all the p^st this trying horn- 
Most summons self-possession's power ; 
To know if that dear life is lost ; 
To comprehend the cruel cost 
To one fond mother, young and fair ; 
To thank the stranger, and to bear 
The girl to yonder cottage home ; 
To pray the living pulse may come, — 
All these swift thoughts must be obeyed, 
And leaving now the mimic glade, 
The full clear moon across their way 
Blending pale light with lingering day, 
Gives to the features of the child 
An angel beauty, heavenly mild. 
They're rigid yet, but on her lips 
Some warmth is felt ; the half-eclipso 
Of dull, still eyes — it seems not death, — 



74 SONG OF THE mVEES. 

There^s promise of returning breath. 
The stranger and his charge preceding, 
Allien the other child is leading ; — 
Few words are spoken, short the way,— 
Now from the cottage falls a ray 
That quickens pace ; soon all is told, 
And other arms the suiBferer hold ; — 
Speedy the remedies ; the care 
Wakes life anew and calms despair. 

The stranger bowing from the scene, 
His escort offers to Allien 
Who, on his courtesy relying, 
Kefuses not her sweet complying. 

Absorbed in feeling's deepest strength, 
Her words are few, until at length 
They reach the pastor's humble gate, 
Where she, with air considerate, 
Bestows new thanks on one unknown, 
Almost for saving life o'er thrown I 

Dismissed, the strange recipient 
Of gratitude from accident. 
With some reluctance turns away ; 
For on his mind has dawned a ray • 
Of spirit beauty, new to one 
Whose soul is dark, who lives — alone. 

Evening's remaining periods closed, 
The passive senses all reposed ; 
Soft slumber's inter kicin;;^ arms 



SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 75 

Clasped round the mind Inxurious charms, 

Wliich formed a paradise its OAvn, 

Making' its hidden music known 

To memory, whose failing task 

Gave not to morn what morn would ask. 

When airy waves of rising day 
Far o'er the hill-top spread their way, 
The maiden woke, one dream retained, 
AVhicli in her reveries long maintained 
Remembrance sweet, delightful, clear 
As infancy's pellucid tear. 
With heavenly purpose, angel-willcd, 
A mother bent above her child, 
Amid a lustrous atmosphere 
That brought stellated rays so near. 
And made the walls a bloom of light. 
She gazed with wondrous new delight 
With silvery wings that first unfurled 
Their pinions in a sinless world, 
And kiss ethereal, she gave 
Raptures that e'en forgot the grave. 
Her voice breathed notes of song divine 5 
Her eyes_were beauty's smile benign, 
And all she whispered of that clime 
Unknown to grief and clouds of time, 
Made brighter than in days before 
The wreaths hope's golden image wore. 
But heaven not lingers long below 
With sweetest hours the heart may know ; 



to SONG OF THE RlVERg. 

Not long may ecstacies of joy 
Resist the gloom of sin's alloy, 
And that celestial visitant 
Departed, smiling as she went. 

Again the solar hour of nine 
Rings loud and clear the belfry sign; 
The playful urchins hide their balls, 
And in the bag the marble falls ; 
Disjoined are hands, and hushed is song 
And o'er the threshold rush the throng j 
Across the lintel sunlight streams, 
Too slowly marking noonday-beams, 
AVhen joyous bounding o'er the meads, 
Each step elastic homeward leads j — 
A speedy hour, and all return, 
Their tedious tasks ere night to learn ; 
Bending some wistful looks the while 
To watch the shades embrace the isle 
The river nurses on its breast, 
From hills that circle round the west. 

Musing perchance on pleasures gone, 
The teacher's daily labor done. 
Her path pursues along the river 
Whereon the feeble sun-lines quiver, 
While limpid dews prepare to shino 
At morn, on elm and eglantine ; 
To crystallize each floral crown, 
And bind the wings of thistle-down. 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 11 

A few low words, and by her side 
There walks an uninvited Q:uide ! 
Prompt salutation freely speaks 
Some pleasure from her eyes and cheeks ; 
No thought has she to countervail 
The impress of that evening tale, 
How courage, kindness, promptitude, 
Eescued Melissa from the flood. 
Cherished by feeling, 't was sustained 
By all that gratitude defined ; — 
Not freer noon's unclouded' skies 
From shade of soul-deformities, — 
A deed for memory to embalm 
And o'er it sing her gC'ntlest psalm 5 
And it was now a bond, a tie, 
Allien's true heart could not deny ; 
Causing her impulse kind to swerve 
From more habitual reserve, 
And, too immediate, the hue 
Of admiration's blushes drew 
Their rose-waves outward, when delay 
Should long have kept them from the day. 

The steps that time her own are grace, 
Agility refined ; the face 
That bends to mirror her soft eyes, 
Sophisticated doubt defies. 
^Tis true his orbs are dark and deep, 
Where passion's elements may sleep 
In subtle designations, seeming 



78 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 



1^5 



Too like serenity's first dreamiiif 
His form is supple, tall, defined 
By shoulders not too low, outlined 
Like Adonis' ; those lips are thin 
And rosy ; delicate that chin 
Is chiseled, sensitive but full ; 
Those cheeks in gentle laughter's lull 
Have velvet texture, but more pale 
Than fair, and sallow more than hale ; 
The brow, not high, is white with thought, 
The hair with rav»n shadows frought. 
Curls slightly ; — neither young nor old, 
His years have not their secrets told ; 
And hear his voice — its gentle sound, 
Soft, varying, subduing, round 
In modulation, trained and sweet, 
For artful use was all complete. 
It charms directly, unawares. 
The inexperienced maiden's ears. 

*I paused this morning by the gate 
To learn if your sweet childish mate 
Had oped her lovely infant eyes 
In Earth instead of Paradise ! 

By your consent I may express 
My sympathizing happiness 
That one so beautiful and young 
Still lives to share your daily song ; — 
Companionship like hers must be 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 19 

Joy's undisputed ecstacy/ 

With checked emotion in her eyes, 
Allien to his address replies : 

'True. In my leisure hours the child 
Has many saddening thoughts beguiled 5 
Her sympathy is fragrance sweet 
In many a moment's lone retreat ; 
My duties for this partial love, 
On lighter pinioned periods move 5 
But she restored, so fairj is yet 
The author of one vain regret, 
The want of power to cancel debt P 

Flashed brighter her companion's eye, — 

Self-satisfaction clamored high, 

But all concealed its spurring power ; 

He stooped and broke a way-side flower, 

A purple violet, and prest. 

As if with no design, its crest 

To briefly silent lips ; enough,— 

The tide went back with this rebuff; 

And self possessed, e'en as before 

The slightest shade which had spread o'er 

His features, cheerily he smiled. 

Still speaking of the favorite child j 

We will not call his smile a mask, 

Nor of its inward meaning ask. 

'Lady, talk not of this to me 



80 SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 

Who favored thus first looked on tliee ; 
Who but thy sweet consent would claim 
To ask thine own and speak my name j — 
The first perchance to me is known, 
But I would hear it from thy tone ; 
And more, fair maiden, wouldst thou tell, 
Of all thy beauty lovest well. 
A thousand pardons, be there need, 
For this request which thou wilt heed V 

'No need but that I here express 
My heart's sincerest happiness 
To learn the name of one whose arm 
Eescued my little friend from harm.' 

*Full thanks, sweet maid I who speaks to thee, 

A wanderer from all ties free, 

No more possessing than his name, 

Can but Stelthair de Forest claim ; 

The Virg-in state was once my home, — 

Self exiled thence, abroad I roam ; 

For mother, father, sister, none 

Are left to me ; and brother, one, 

Whose age is mine, whose path unknown.'* 

Allien bent her averted gaze 
Toward the sun's fast mellowing rays, 
Which slanted o'er the shrubs and flowers, 
The clover-meads and grape-vine bowers, 
And lit them for the night retreat 



SONG OF THE EIYERS. 81 

Of insect wing-s and birdling" feet ; 
Forg-etting- liim who by her side 
Walked silent on, her soiiPs sweet tide 
Rippled a few low notes of son^, 
Which, trembling, half-escaped her tongue, 
And bounded thought's deep stillness. 

'Sing, 
0, lady, nor restrain one string 
Of nature's lute ! Earth promised Heaven, 
When Music to her care was given. 
To grant the child indulgences, to twine 
Its form with love ; such power is thine 1 
This favor — one more boon — I ask,— - 
Surely 'tis no unwilling task 1' 

*A11 nature owns the power divine 

Who gave us life and love ; — 
see the tranquil glories shine 

In sympathy, above I 
The far, adoring, living stars, 

Light-blooming-groves of space, 
Which twinkling through the cloud's soft bars. 

Make every line a grace 1 

So let our voices swell in praise 

Let sinless raptures wake 
The long-hushed songs of Eden days, 

Our hearts their bliss partake I 

Let every spirit grateful own 

Jehovah's sovereign will ; 
4* 



82 SONG OF THE mVERS. 

Kneeling recipients of his tlirone, 
Let every strife be still ! 

Her strain had ceased, her home regained, 
De Forest Lowed with air restrained. 
Polite and graceful : — ' Sir, good-night/ 
And he departed. 

Soft the light 
Decreased ; — the summer dreamed 
Of many a faded flower redeemed. 

And here we pause. Mirrors of gold 

Wherein another may behold 
His fellow's inward life, so fair 

Presenting that no libel there 

May shame offended charity. 

Are rare in God's economy ; 

My feeble muse can claim them not — 

My poor transplanted apricot 
Too weak to ask the gardener why 
It may not have more rain and sky. 

Dares not expect to draw the vail, 

Disclosing all the serpent's trail ; 

Revealing all love e'en has wrought 

In man's perversest gleam of thought ; 

All that philosoph}'' has earned, 

Or passion of its stubble burned — 

All life's experience have proven 

The burdens faith in God hath moven ; 

The germs of good that wak(?to flower, 



SONG OF THE KIVER3. g3 

In some more pure propitious hour. 

But, as throug'li science we beliold 
Creation's signs — impressions old, 
Of buried ages, ere began 
The Eden-joy, or sin of man 
In coral periods far remote, 
When lime-mosaics were afloat 
In myriads of living sliells 
That drank from ocean's briny wells, 
Discerning eyes too well may trace 
Oft times man's history on his face. 

It pleased De Forest well to roam, 

Untutored and too soon, from home ; 

Dangers that threaten all the young, 

Denied a mother's counsel tongue. 

Beset his path ; temptation reaped 

Fruits bitterer than wormwood steeped j — 

Love's whispers heard but as the call 

Of passion's baser carnival. 

Pleasure its baleful poppies showering 

WJiere healthful virtues else were flowerino* 

Twere not in nature so allied 

A problem that its shrine was pride. 

Pride not man's crown of dignity, 

But weak puerile vanity. 

Whose tenderest side is hate of scorn, 

Pretext unworthy and forlorn ; 

But twin-born forms may have no link 



84 SOXG OF TEE RIVEKS. 

Of kindred souls, as though one brink 
Of time's vast stream by one was traced 
The other on the far shore placed ; 
So one completed man may be 
A contradicted mystery. 
Stelthair, what e'er his sins had been 
Owned traits of mind too oft unseen ; 
Which thriving with a heart more pure, 
Might joy's companionship secure. 
His friendship strong to emulate 
High deeds, too selfishly elate 
Turned otto to the fumes of gall, 
And made their radiance a pall j 
Thus estimating acts its own 
With commendation's undertone, 
Not from a modest but deficient power, 
Making its own acceptance cower. 

That he had saved from death a child. 
His love of daring flushed and smiled ; 
That he by this might gain a heart 
Already had invoked his art. 
Selfish and vain, but not all base, 
He in the gentle teacher's face 
Saw beauty's confirmation more 
Soul-spirited than all before 
Of woman's charms that e'er for him 
Awoke or sealed deception's dream. 
So conquest strengthens when most wec.k ; 
So flattery glides like serpents sleek, 



SOXG OF THE RIVERS 85 

When by ignoble minds are sought 
Young admiration's wings ; when caught 
The impulse wanders, fleet as gold 
That flowers the lily's petal-fold. 

Where Old Dominion mountains rear 
Their brows to meet the tempest's cheer 
When rusliing from Atlantic's slioro, 
Sublimely grand their tumults roar, 
And break their currents down the hill 
To whistle in the valleys shrill ; 
To penetrate their cedar shade, 
And serenade each flowery glade,— 
Where wild Monongahela winds, 
And many a green encircling binds, 
A rude old house of dingy stone 
Afar from hamlet stood alone, 
Whose smoky gables frowned forlorn 
The day De Forest there was born. 
Wild as the region ot his birth, 
He early longed to roam the earth, 
With scarce design, nor purpose grand, 
Not love of gain, nor of command, 
Nor power to cope with virtue's foe, 
None bade him rest, none bade him go ; 
Launched on the world's turgescent tide, 
Lived not one friend his course to chide. 

0, charming sympathetic power. 

That makes two hearts to each a flower ; 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

AAHiose subtle fragrance moves unseen 
Around two souls, but ne'er between ! 
But flowers are poison now and then — 
Beside the daisy in the glen, 
Stramonium may rear its cloud 
Of dingy green, its trumpet shroud ; 
A flower that for its deadly freight, 
Must abdicate its claim to white. 

And sj^mpathy, akin to love , 
So deeply some true hearts may move 
They may not see until its strength 
Has wandered to a dangerous length, 
When, though rebuked, the impulse tells 
A mournful tale, like faded shells 
That murmur of the treacherous sea, 
Loth still to lose its sympathy ; 
Leading sometimes like love estray, 

To thicken griefs along life's way ; 

'Tis always well to guard its power, 
Nor gather every way-side flower. 

Our gentle one embraced the thrill 
It brought her heart ; unchiding will 
Gave full consent, — from day to day, 
Accompanied on her homeward way 
By her devoted friend, the vale 
Grew shorter by each earnest tale 
His rich lips framed, — his step so slow, 
So graceful, — she was loth to know 
The pathway's end . 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 81 

'My life's dim clay 
Is sunned by friendship's holy ray j 

let me wear its beauty long, 
And by its favor live more strong ; 
My heart be its perpetual home ; — 

1 would not bid an orphan roam 
The wilds of Earth denied a friend, — 
My prayers his footsteps shall attend, 
And thus allure my thought from gloom 
That binds me to my lost one's tomb ;' — 
She reasoned thus. 

One night it came, — 
Avowal of the tender flame, 
With gentlest play of word and tone, 
And softest smile — for her alone ; 
Eternal vows of constancy ; 
Asseverations, ecstacy 
Of fear and hope, — love's promise fair, 
0, was there aught but masking there? 

Sweetly she answered, well prepared : — 
* I thank you for this kind regard ; 
But seek to bind no tenderer tie 
Than friendship claims, for destiny 
Has bound us by no stronger chain, 
And this may bring no living pain ; — 
Accept such pledge ; I can no more : 
Love's witchery fer me is o'er.' 

A shade, a short lip-curl, a frown. 



88 SONG OF TUE RIVERS. 

A quick new thought and all were gone ; 

The artifice was fortified, 

And kneeling by the maiden's side, 

Where now the grove's more deepening shade 

Covert from observation made, 

Upraising eyes unused to look 

Skyward, again he gently took 

Her hand within his own, and sighed, — > 

0, mimicry of yielding pride 1 

Resolve was strong, but there was yet 
Weakness in sympathy's regret, 
Danger for innocence that deemed 
The counterfeit the thing it seemed 
Allien believed his heart sincere ; 
Her fancy pictured one bright tear 
Trembling upon that manly cheek, — 
She tried in vain, she could not speak. 
Now list I A rich harmonious strain 
Comes soft, but startling o'er the plain 5 
The sounds breathe of a living lyre 
That personates the soul's desire 
And bids its aspirations rise 
On wings ethereal to the skies ; 
Which far from mortal sight can bear 
A heart oppressed by sin or care ; 
Crippled by disappointment's spell ; 
Wounded because it loves too well ; 
Wasting because its tender thouc>*ht 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 89 

Strives ever, still obtaining nought ; 

Weeping forever round one shrine, 

There always murmuring, ^ Mine, 0, mine!' 

The v7orld has asked, but who has told 
The treasury of music's gold ? 
Its charms are felt, its power we know, 
But where the fount of its full flow ? 

Poets from suffering learning song, 
The ruins of their hearts among ; 
Lining the down on insect wing ; 
Inhaling myrrh the while they sing ; 
Painting the mote of vernal breeze ; 
Building from leaves of summer trees, 
Structures so ornate and so fair 
They fall while summer's breath is there ; — 
These ask of Music where's her home, 
And cadences not answers come. 
0, be it through the night afar, 
Within the paling of some star 
That as an angel's diadem 
Gives permanence to beauty's dream? — 
The human soul becomes its shrine, 
Its home and origin divine ; — 
'Tis all we know, and all we tell 
Of Music's overmastering spell. 

De Forest and Allien have stood, 
Erect and silent by the wood, 
Waiting approach of human feet, — 



90 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

She knows 'tis Helen's voice so sweet 
That vibrates on the evening air, 
And gives her reassurance there, 

' So, I have found you ! Night is near 1 
Why linger ye so tardy here ? ' 

A bow from Forest, prompt and low, — 
Was't this that flushed her neck of snow? 
Not then ; — a quick, deep thought had sent 
A rose-shade upward ; what it meant 
Woman can tell. 

' 0, sister, come, 
They wait thy presence, dear, at home.' 
Her step reversed she led the way, 
Singing. When on the poplars lay 
The sun's last golden stripe, alone 
The two sat on the door-way's stone ; 
Helen too gentle to intrude 
Upon her sister's silent mood, 
Few words were uttered. One heart gay 
With early youth's perpetual May, 
The other wearing still the shroud 
Of hope, but softened like a cloud 
Of silver o'er the morn. 

And from that hour she grew reserved, 
Watching if friendship still deserved 
Her confidence. She studied well ; — 
A few brief lessons may dispel ' 
Illusion when a mask discerning, 



SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 91 

Truth sets the dry material burning. 

^Tis ever difficult to greet, 
Acknowledge actions indiscreet ; 
Their revocation does not smooth 
The bitter secret of their ruth ; 
And while their author writhes within, 
Another's hatred may begin ; 
When to avoid, to him means 'scorn j' 
A signal for the demon born 
Is compromise of truth or self, 
Boldly required by th' clamorous elf. 
Allieu, in this dilemma, on the plain 
One eve her lover met again. 
*My love, I came in search of you, 
My fond confessions to renew ! 
Has not your gentle heart repealed 
The cruel verdict lately sealed? 
You truly love me : — Answer, yes ; — 
Let those sweet lips the truth confess I 
Allien, be mistress of my bower. 
Its bright exotic, queenly flower ; — 
Let no barbarian tendrils dare 
Embrace my rose, my treasure rare I 
Sit down upon this velvet grass 
And bless the breezes as they pass I 
0, come, my love, my darling, come, — 
No more from 3'our adorer roamP 

Surprised, she yet found quick reply, 



92 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

And raised her frank reproving eyo, 
Eesting on his, till inward born, 
They shot their burning rays of scorn ; 
Decrees of conscious dignity 
Commanding deference instantly. 

Peace brooded o'er the quiet world ; 

Blue smoke-wreaths o'er the hamlet curled 5 

Around it wound the river slow, — 

Anon the winds begin to blow ; 

The sinking sun far in the west, 

Behind a cloud conceals his crest; 

And darkly up a sombre vail 

Spreads o'er the sky its troubled sail ; — 

Now hoarse, low thunders break, and tell 

The August day's disturbed farewell ;^ 

Bluelightningsflashing here and there, 

Foretell a fearful storm is near. 

Allien before her window bends, 

Musing on life and worthless frienas ; — 

Memory and love too intertwining, 

One last sad scene is grief defining, 

Transporting her in swift caprice, 

O'er many a league of watery space ; 

She greets broad moors and mountains grand, 

The dowry of a rugged land ; 

Walking alone o'er mossy braes. 

Where Oscar roved in other days, 

Eefiection pained still, asking 'why,' 



SONG OP THE RIVERS. 

Eternal echo its reply. 

0, images of lost delight, 

Life's multiplying parasite, 

Feeding on hope that else might bloom. 

Your conquests all too quickly come 1 

How scarce the mind regards the lie 

Of opulent air-buildings ! Fie I 

Then what is all reality 

But broken strata, grief and joy. 

The gold less weighty than alloy I 

But where is Stelthair Forest now? 
Maturing a revengeful vow :— - 
'Shall I endure her maiden scorn? 
Was I to such dishonor born ? 
She yet must feel that man has power 
To crush as well as love a flower I' 

Pacing a closely shuttered room. 
Unmindful of the storm and gloom,' 
Of night, or nature's stern demands, 
Describing circles with his hands,— 
Ignoring sleep, forgetting food,— 
That fiendish passion, thirst for blood, 
Possessed his being, nerve and soul, 
Assuming absolute control. 
Again he speaks :—' My certain aim 
Shall quench the life, put out the flame, 
And not imploring eyes sha!l quail 
My nerve, or make my purpose fail ; 



93 



94 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Then, honor ! thou art bright as now ; — 
Stelthak recants no vengeful vow 1 

A score of hours on dull wings flown, 

Another gentle day has gone, 

A play fatigued and guileless lamb 

Lies down at night beside its dam, 

Upon the fragrant turf to rest. 

Unthinking what has veiled the crest 

Of noon's glad sun ; so softly slept 

Allien, who long ere while had wept. 

Till prayer and wearied nature soothed 

Her mind to seek its dreaming food ; 

She slumbers ; o'er her swelling breast 

The moonbeams steal to give attfest 

To fairer beauty on her brow. 

And make the shadows wonder how 

The lillies left the night parterre. 

To smile in sweet contentment there I 

Quiet as airs before a storm 

She dreams of no impending harm ; — 

Sweet odors through the casement stealing 

'Mid listless vines around it wreathing, 

Bear no low periods of sound ; 

Bright burns the stars by space embound ; 

Reposes all the garden bloom. 

Silence and rest are in the home. 

She starts, — one snowy hand is o'erj 
ller scattered tresses flung, before 



SONG OF THE raVERS. 95 

Her sleeping eyes the other prest 
In momentary half unrest, 
And all again is calm and still 
As icy chains can bind a rill. 

The vines are torn aside ; he creeps 

Adroitly, then he noiseless leaps. 

And by the spotless shrine he stands, — 

What stream shall cleanse his murderous hands ? 

0, base, deceived, misguided man I 
No mortal eye has power to scan 
The dark confusion of thy heart, 
Where pale remorse may fix its dart 
Of poison, — burning, deadly strife, — 
And phantoms round thee sway the knife 
Whence ever-falling drops of blood 
Whisper, 'from innocence we flowed I' 
Thy tortured soul's self-kindled fire 
May not consume its new desire, 
But murder's living, clamorous stain 
There seek its duplicate to gain. 
Earth's beauty, — moonbeams, stars and flowers, 
Be thy reproach for future hours ; — 
In the open dungeon of thy mind, 
Still chained, thy hopes shall be confined. 

He dares disturb her angel dreams, 
And smothering all her rising screams, 
Bears swift away her fainting form 
By strength derived from passion's storm 



96 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Of red revenge, whose gloating eyo 
Is feasting on its easy prey. 

Passing the lawn, beyond the well, 
The garden where great shadows fell 
From hoary elms that frowned more stern 
As seemed their boughs the crime to learn, 
He laid his burden down beside 
The river's noiseless limpid tide, 
Before his lovely victim stood, 
The shame of calm night's solitude. 

'Reviving now, escaping fear, — 

Serenity's death-harbinger, — 

Raising her full, clear eyes on him, 

Looking a star that nought might dim, 

A light of truth-pledged destiny,-^ 

A dove from love's eternity ; — 

So mute and calm before her fate, — 

Where creeps the relish of his hate? 

She speaks : ' Stelthair, may God forgive your sin 

Jesus your soul from darkness win. 

I've not deceived you ; 'tis your own 

Proud heart that wrongs, not me alone, 

But wastes your peace ; I've been your friend, 

But have no power to comprehend 

That love in such disguise can seek 

To take false vengeance on the weak.' 

In vain, in vain ! Given o'er, enslaved 
By passion's minions, thoughts that raved 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 9t 

'Neath brarabling conscience ; maddened will 
Rushed, fire-impelled, demoniac still : — 
Chimera, controversion, doubt, 
When peace sleeps o'er her resting lute, 
And man looks god-like, wanting God's 
Foreknowledge of the guilty loads 
He then so calm, must yet bear on, — 
Life's sad inheritance to man I 

To give the one decisive blow 
Stelthair's right arm is lifted slow, 
As if some pure compulsive eyes 
Restrained him from yon starry skies ! 
But hate impels the weapon's course, — 
Alas ! it speeds with cruel force, 
Her suffering heart sends forth its wail. 
The moon-rays pale confess the tale, 
The dark empurpling stains that spread 
Upon her snowy dress * * * Dead ? 
Life's stream arrested in its tide 
To gratify revenge and pride ? 

' 'Tis done,' half audibly he cries, 
And stoops to close her nerveless eyes ; 
0, has not pity's faithful thought 
One sigh for ruin grossly wrought. 
One deep, redeeming impulse then 
To mourn, and ask the hour again ? 
Can human hearts where love resides 
Resign to deeds that shame derides 

6 G 



98 SONG OF THE RIVEEa 

Their whole domain ? Ah me, the sin 
A tampering" soul may nurse within 
Till all the court be darkness I 

Done, 
'Twas next to flee. Remorseful one, 
What refuge shall efface thy deed I 
What subterfuge declare thee freed 
From thy corroding, self-bound chain, — 
What antidote relieve thy pain ? 

Plunging in deepest shade, he flies 
Engulfed in night's black m^^steries 
A surer victim than the one 
Mistaken love could so disown ! 

Life's spark was not entirely gone ; 
The tottering brain resumed its throne ; 
The sluggish heart began to feel 
The baffled efibrt of the steel ; 
As on the hard and dew-cold sand, 
While night wore on in silence grand 
And stars up toward the zenith drew ; 
Allien still lay alone ; she knew 
The arm of God had fettered back 
Destruction's arrow in her track. 
That morn and safety were before her. 
Truly as angels watching o'er her. 

Rejoicing in the sunny morn. 
Her sister's tresses to adorn. 
Bright Helen seeks her, wondering wliy 



EOXG OF THE RIVERS. 99 

Allien sleeps 'neath such brilliant sky I 
Glad notes are trilling from her tongue,-— 
The yielding door is open flung, — 
Lo I where is Allie ? None have yet 
Her morning salutation met I 
And seeing there her daily dress, 
Her features change to doubt's distress, 
While flying from the rifled room 
To give the house the strange alarm. 
And forth it went like light and sound 
So quickly, all the village round ; 
While all the household run to seek 
Some signs within the grounds to speak 
The dear one's fate ; no thought have they 
Consent allowed her steps to stray : 
Some violence has borne her from 
The shelter of her second home I 

Lost I 'Tis a word that claims the tomb 
For company, love's tone of doom,—. 
Sometimes it trifles ; then it kills 
Grand hopes and lovely : 'tis like mills 
To millions of gold sovereigns, yet 
Its meaning mourners ne'er forget. 
Something is found when joy is lost-— - 
'Tis misery. When death has crost 
Our threshold twice, something is left 
Not there before : bosoms bereft 
May keep the shadows, hoping still ; 



100 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

But lost! explaining not the ill 
Befallen one we love, to hear 
Is but the climax of despair. 

Allien is found, and on the crowd 

Of anxious ones around her bower, 

AVhile on a softer couch she lies, 

She looks with weak and wondering eyes 

As though forgotten were the hour 

She 'scaped the murderer's deathly power. 

But nature sank beneath the shock, 

And wasting fever seemed to mock. 

Week after week, all efforts made 

To save the sufferer from the dead : 

Then, feeling little sense of pain, 

Her thoughts in lethargy remain. 

Till with a dirge like interposing 

The windy Autumn's wail is closing ' 

The dying glory of the year, 

When chillier shadows reappear, 

And shriller through the rifled bowers 

Stern prophecies of Winter hours 

Rebound up the bracing air, 

While dead leaves flutter here and there, 

A^nd mouse and squirrel stow away 

Sweet nuts to cheer the Wintry day. 

Attended with the tenderest care, • 

Her spirit then awakes to share 

In fond affection's certain light 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. lOJ 

The pastimes of the frosty iiig'ht. 
Once more did hope inspire her way, 
Giving contentment with its ray, 
So like these hidden streams that sleep 
In desert sands, but e'en more deep, 
One name and episode were gone, 
To feeling and to thoughts unknown. 

The bridal bells are pealing I 
4- bridal vow is sealing I 

A maiden by the altar stands ; 
The crown of snow-drops on her hair 
Is rivaling her neck so fair. 

And proudly holds her fairy hands 
A noble youth of burning ejo, 
Whose brow of thought is arched and high 5 

And while a breath of air can stir 
The drapery that decks his bride — 
A gossamer serial tide — 

He stands as though a worshiper 
And see I the throng that round them wait 
With admiration are elate, 

And many a beauty envies more 

The peerless Helen than before 1 

Such words as angels love to hear 

Are breathed while flows affection's tear ; 

And hope embodied seems to tell 
Of bright advancing years of joy, 
Of streams of bliss with no alloy, 



102 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Proceeding from the heart's deep well 
Now tender salutations greet 
The wedded pair ; — on feathery feet 

The soft approving moments hie ; — 
Parental hope, parental pride, 
CMose pensive round the happy bride, 

And like Arcturus in the sky, 
Eclii^sing reulluraH^ far 
Shines Helen the acknowledged star I 

Now mirth and festive gladness 
Divert all thought of sadness : 

Sweet, gay, melodious songs are heard ; 
Rich cadences the young and fair 
Wake on the bright perfumed air 

Ring, rivaling the forest bird I 
The early hours of evening seem 
The melting visions of a dream, 

Till in the outward stillness, loud 

The midnight's chime is sent abroad. 

The scene has passed, forever passed ; 
Too joyous and too pure to last ! 

The wedding night has left its seal 
Upon the elastic heart — no change 
Can break, no gloom estrange ; 

Eternity may e'en reveal 
The gentle shimmerings of its light, 

• ReuUura, in Gajlic, meaus beautiful star.— Tuojias Ca^^ipbell* 



SONG OF THE RIVEES. 103 

Far in the gleam of mortal niglit. 

Once more sweet Spring is on the plain, 
With birds and blossoms in its train : 
Once more the sea-green spires of grass 
Bend softly as the breezes pass. 
Unprisoned brooks in wider bound 
Are threading silver o'er the ground, 
And Robin-red-breast, shy and free, 
Has sought the loftiest cherry-tree, 
The shadiest bough, to build a nest 
Where five blue eggs awhile will rest 5 
And when the luscious fruit is ripe, 
Gleaming with red and amber stripe, 
The nest will stir with tiny life, 
As rosy mouths in twittering strife 
Open to catch the morsel dear 
The parent drops from branchlet neax. 

0, happy birdlings, j^ewere made 
Sad hearts from weeping to dissuade ; 
Muses of Spring, of wood, and height, 
Where proud the eagle plumes his flight ;— « 
Ye guardians of the blossoms fair 1 
Ye living blisses of the air ! 

The child of lovers baptismal vow, 
Breathing in pure religion's flow, 
From life's first morn, through all her days, 
Our orphan loved the Lord. Truth's rays 



104 SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 

From love's eternal foimtain shone 

On her young soul ; when most alone 

'T was time's perpetual eloquence, 

Celestial hope's munificence. 

But 'twas this last dark stroke that brought 

Clearer conviction to her thought ; 

And duty's outward form became 

Confession of the Savior's name. 

0, could we draw aside the screen 

This and another world between, 

And view with tireless mortal eyes 

Yon bright celestial Paradise 

Where arms are wings, where sound is song, 

And robed in light are the vast throng 

Of blissful beings who fulfill 

Untempted the Creator's will ; 

Where never more the heart may yearn 

Unsatiate for love eterne ; 

Where soul-companionship complete 

Makes every thought one thrill more sweet 

Than years of ecstacies may prove, — 

Earth-mingled, ever-changing love — 

0, not to draw the glory down, 

But purer grow to look upon 

Beauty and joy to sin unknown I 

Sweet and serene the Sabbath-smile, 
While softly up the narrow aisle 
Allien advances, now to kneel. 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 105 

In humbleness her heart must feel, 
Before the simple altar ; there 
Her foster father stands in prayer ; 
He reads the vows of covenant, 
And then the holy sacrament 
Is first partaken. In Heaven above 
Glad angels feel new thrills of love, 
And stronger goes the pilgrim forth 
To tread the thorny ways of Earth. 

Advancing toward the western hills, 

Above the river and its rills, 

Upon the outskirts of Glendale, 

There lies a deep and narrow vale, 

Or wooded glade ; 'tis rarely sought, 

Save by the lone and sad in thought : 

Perchance the aged man may seek 

At eventide, with visage meek, 

The ancient shades to muse upon 

Years of full pleasure long since gone ; — 

Lovers sometimes there, arm in arm. 

Walk almost mute with love's new charm ; 

There now and then the school-boy's feet 

Rove, not so near, and soon retreat. 

It has been said, when night's dark mail 

Conceals the glade, a broken wail, 

As of a spirit's brief return. 

From o'er the hill-top sounding", worn, 

Monotonous and deep and weird, 
5* 



106 SOXG OF THE mVEHS. 

Trembling anon, as if a tired 
And aged voice discoursed in vain 
KesemLlance of its youthful strain, 
Has oft been heard ; but while the ear 
Bends yet reluctantly to hear, 
A sudden silence may succeed, 
And then a light the vision lead 
Increasing as it settles down 
Upon the tallest tree's dark crown ; 
Growing more lurid in its flame, 
Till, as you gaze, a mystic name. 
Or word, is lettered boldly there, — 
A moment and 'tis lost in air I 

Superstition ! Child of Fear and Night 5 
Sister of Ignorance and Blight ; 
Arrayed in cloud, sustained by gloom, 
Rejecting all that might illume. 
Thou art a shadow, else a fire 
Within a rock, or blank desire 
For what thou never canst attain, — . 
A fire-fly on a marshy plain 
Emitting one faint, failing gleam 
Beneath a star's eternal beam I 

'T was said, these moans were from a mound, 
The green high centre of the ground 
Between the knoll and hill, whereon 
No trees had grown through ages gone , 
Nature disclaims her impress there, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 107 

And art will scarce the symbol bear ; 
'T was fashioned by an absent race, 
And was the Indian's burial place. 
The spectral radiance came from far, 
Memento of extinguished war ; 
And Stockbridge was the fiery name 
Outlined amid this midnight flame. 

Behold a scene that knew the past, 
From whence tradition's shadows cast 
Vague records. 'Tis a mortal scene, 
Of life and death of what has been I 

Tall forms, athlete and sinewy, move 
In dark procession through this grove ; 
Erect each head, each lip comprest, 
Solemn and slow each naked breast 
Swells high in speechless grief profound, — 
The red-brown brows with plumes are crowned ; 
The eyes indulge a vacant -gaze ; 
The hands bear stalks of ripening maize, 
And wampum wealth, to lay beside 
The warrior in his deathly pride ; 
He died not in the strife of war, 
And o'er the mystic rive* far. 
Plying in silence his dark oar. 
By these sustained, he wants no more. 

So when perchance a dark-eyed maid 
Is for her narrow home arrayed. 
They bear wliite wreaths of thorn-flowers woven 



108 SOXG OF THE KIVER3. 

To crown her for the Indian's Heaven. 

The nerveless form aloft is borne 
Speaking, though still, to those who mourn , 
As deeply if acutely less 
Than Saxon hearts in such distress : 
'Tis half-erect, robed as in life ; 
The tomahawk — at rest from strife- 
Lies by the corse, his eagle-plume 
Is painted gaily for the tomb. 

Now years have gone, and so have they ; 
Descendants of the Stockbridge stray 
On distant prairies rich and broad, 
"With wider canopy o'erhead, 
But less of forest, more of plain. 
And vaster streams that to the main 
Bear yearly tide. 

In Summer nights 
Made pensive by the starry lights, 
The aged warriors sigh to roam 
The precincts of their fathers' home, 
To bathe in Housatonic's waves. 
And build again around their graves 
The tribute fires. Sew with each year 
When days of Summer disappear, 
Some scattered lodges there bespeak 
Return ; but what the pilgrims seek 
Seems unexplained, all more than this, — 
Strange children of the wilderness I 



SOXG OP THE RIVERS. ' 109 

They scarce disturb the squirrel's home, 
So silent is the Indian's gloom ; 
Around the huts the peaceful onea 
Move, speaking but in monotones, 
And reverently tread the ground 
Of that lone cemetery's bound ; 
Pointing below, and then above, 
Like those who know a Savior's love. 

Beneath the young leaves' quivering shade 

Allien roves often to this glade 

For pale anemones iil Spring , 

Or richer blooms the Summers bring ;— 

In Autumn, too, when beech and oak 

Are crimsoned darker in the smoke 

Of fires re-kindled, oft she makes 

Her way through interlacing brakes, 

And thickets wild, and gazes on 

The burial-mcunds of warriors gone. 

She ponders on the m ournful fate 

Of people rude, but strong and great ; 

The primal owners of the soil, 

But chary of husbandric toil ; 

Unlettered, stern and unrefined, 

Unpolished both in mien and mind j 

Unknown to geographic sweep 

Of rock or plain, or waters deep, 

Or measure of the Earth ; the wild 

Free, bold, courageous, athlete child 



110 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Of forest shades, and water-cove, — 
Offspring of Heaven's omniscient love. 

Pride, sentinel of classic walls, 
Watcher of old baronial halls, 
Safe-guard of beauty, shield of flowers, 
Spirit of antique arms and powers ; 
Thine upward glance and diamond eye, 
Soaring as eagles clouds defy. 
Or gathering ruins' fragments grand 
To build again with unseen hand ; 
Restoring base and column vast, 
And capital and cornice, cast 
In Gothic or Ionian mould, 
Entablature and friezes old, 
AVith pediment and architrave, 
From dim oblivion's open grave, — 
Thou know'st as well the red-man^s breast 
As the Circassian emperor's crest I 

And Strength, the nations' wand of power, 
Is too his natural boast and dower ; — 
Treasure and danger of many lands, 
God-woven in its cordon bands, 
Olympiac triumph, Helvic boast, 
Teutonic orown, Caledonia's cost, — 
This the supplanted Indian keeps 
Within his soul as thunder sleeps. 

And courage, thou sustaincr grand 
Of human reason, sight and hand ; 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. HI 

Thou art for him a legacy 
Of all mankind's fraternity I 

The blue-bells of New EnMand runir 
A fairy cadence as they hung 
Suspended by their threads between 
Dark spreading boughs of evergreen, 
O'er-hanging rocky precipice 
Where time has left its hoary kiss, 
And storms have beat and washed in vain 
To eradicate the Bluebeard-stain. 
Their music herald was of June, 
When Nature's harp in highest tune, 
Inspired the souVs responsive lyre 
To send its grateful music higher. 

Before she bids a last adieu 
To all the scenes her childhood knew, 
The orphan goes oue evening forth 
To moisten with her tears the earth 
Where what remains in ashes rest, 
Of forms loved earliest and best. 
Beside her parents' graves she kneels, 
And inexpressive sadness feels 
As thought uncurbed, with eager wing 
Speeds back to life's more early Spring 
Bearing a chastened, solemn trace 
Of that most consecrated place. 
The rippling of a Lethean stream 
Is holy in the passing dream : 



ig» 



112 SONO OF THE RIVERS. 

Thongli weeping-willows o'er it bear 
The beauty of the past is there — 
Her sacred past, — and by its brink 
The same bright daisies love to drink : 
There Summer cloudlets — fairy isles — 
As long ago, seem Heavenly smiles : — 
0, hallowed scene I 0, brief return I 
Your feeble lights so softly burn I 

Tliese spirits of her infant home 
Almost dispel her wish to roam 
Afar where danger marks the track, 
For oh 1 her childhood has come back. — 
— 'Tis gone ! The freshening of the breeze 
Wakes mournful sounds among the trees ; 
And fitful beats the pulse of day, 
As changing more the shadows gray 
Of shrub and tree become more dense, 
More gloomy to the o'erwrought sense. 
From yonder wood she hears the ov/1, 
Dolorous, while a cloud}^ cowl 
Conceals the recess of the west, 
And birdling throats grow still in rest. 

So silent all, so lone and sad. 
Shrinks not that youthful heart in dread 
Of night's weird marshaling of powers 
Known but to darkness, — phantom hours, 
Time's wandering minister s that bring 
Decrees from some Plutonian king ? 
Of nature's mysteries no fear, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 113 

Of white-vailed ghostly tenanter 

Of grave-yards ; shrieks, and sighs, and moans 

That bear no like to human tones ? 

Ah, na Not one condemning page 

Of superstition, pretence sage, 

Trembling imposter, truth's disguise, 

Has ever fed her spirit eyes. 

So, still she lingers kneeling there 

Her white dress waving in the air, 

Like a banner from etherial spheres, 

Love-calling o'er the vale of tears. 

Bounded by shadows deepening more, 
A slow-descending, light-winged shower 
Encircles the lonely votary 
As if to bear her far away, 
And woo her to a sweet forgetting 
Of sorrow's mute perpetual fretting. 

Her senses more entranced, she hears 
Music too soft for mortal ears, 
And, too, a slight electric stir 
Of wings. A heavenly visitor 
Salutes her there : their sympathy 
Complete, as when from eye to eye 
Love meets its own ecstatic ray, 
Asking but it love's debt to pay. 
A voice — familiar ? No, not now, 
But 0, so tender long ago I 
Such words are whispered, — ' Heaven is love I 
We watch and wait thy steps above I' 



114 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

*My mother/ dies upon her lips, — 
Those mortal eyes are in eclipse : 
No cloud, no solitude, alone 
No more ; the day cannot be gone I 
yes, 'tis gone. The solemn night. 
Its full dominion holds : the light 
Of clouded stars burns not below , 
The atmosphere repels it so. 

Spirits feel not the weight of time 
But as a bell by its own chime 
Vibrates when sound has ceased. Allien 
Was like a disembodied one, 
And there until the morning's dawn 
Gave token that the screen was drawn 
Homeward to night, beside the tomb 
She still reclined ; an ostrich plume 
Than she no fairer, no more pure ; 
But something longer to endure, 
Trembles her form, and blends this strife 
Of perishing and fadeless life. 

Awaking with a feverish start, 
As if her sweet and gentle heart 
Were pierced by th^ soft but arrowy light, 
The vague remembrance of the night. 
And her bath of dew so bright and chill, 
Sends through her frame a shivering thrill, 
A brief bewilderment of fear ; 
Asking, 'why do I linger here?' 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 115 

She rises on her numb cold feet 



And hastens from the lone retreat. 

Again at home, inquiring eyes 
And words, meet kind reserved replies, 
Believing, as the night before, 
She stayed v^ithin a dear friend's door ; — 
Vailing the tumult of her breast, 
She bars her room for needed rest ; — 
Benignant nature gave it soon, — 
She slept till day was high in noon. 



'"The way is long," the father said, 
As through the Western wilds he sped 

With eager searching eye ; ' — 
An emigrant with courage bold 
Who has no thought for paltry gold, 

Conducts a numerous family 
To find a home of sweet content 

Where quiet years may yet be spent. 



Allien, — an angel in the band, — 
Still ponders on her native land, 

But no regretting tears arise ; — 
The courage of the Christian heart 
Can foil the tempter's secret dart ; — 

She gazes on the evening skies 
As sets each day o'er plain or stream 
The Summer sun's warm guiding beam. 



116 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Her consecrated thoughts delight 
To watch its daily promise light ; — 

She soothes the matron's anxious fear, 
While heavenly grace, like timely showers 
Refreshes all her life-sweet powers ; 

And in the distance rays appear, 
DiiTusing from Religion's lamp 
Around the led-man's sombre camp. 



Now close the curtain — bind it well, — 
Let no intrusive glimpses tell 
The sequel of the far away 
Wherein our noble one shall stray. 

Time, though so absolute and stern. 
Enable fancy to discern 
The record Mississippi's wave 
Has murmured for aa orphan's grave 



PART SECOND. 



Awake, my harp, in silence lain, 
Sing wilder the concluding strain ; 
But human life and love still be 
Thy light, thy theme, thy minstrelsy I 
Though sometimes wrung from seas of grief, 
Let every word, and line, and leaf, 
Bear witness of the heart's deep truth, — 
Of nature and the strength of youth I 

May Helicon consent to give 
The flow of song for which I live ; 
To smile in Heaven-reflecting streams. 
And chain the witchery of dreams I 

Fair Faith I Indulgent Hope I 0, stand 
To guide my trembling, tracing hand, 
When visions of repelling storms 
Assail my thought's embodying forms I 

Sweet Muse, forsake me not, but lend 
Thy harp, with mine, though Aveak, to blend 
Poetic harmonies of soul, — 
Blest Goddess, all my notes control I 



118 SONO OF THE KIVEKS. 

Beyond a faintly shimmering' stream 
The Indian hunters' watch-fires gleam, 

Soft shine night's early stars ; 
The air is stirred by unseen hands, 
Dim phantoms wander forth in bands, 

The ghosts of Indian wars ; 
Of conflicts long ago maintained, 
When vengeance, battling unrestrained, 

Laid many a warrior low ; 
When fierce, exultant yells broke forth, 
Which quailed the Spirit of the North, 

Whose rains were turned to snow. 

A band have paused the stream beside, 
The haze is darkening o'er the tide, 
Shrouding the bluffs and sweeping plains 
Where solitude has loosed its chains, 

And woods have circled back. 
Since steam disturbed the wild-cat's play, 
And dawned improvement's waking ray 

Far o'er this Western track ; — 
Courage and hope have struggled long, 
And love revives a fervent song 
Of pleasures past the heart has urned 
Since youth to manhood's courses turned. 

Forgetting childhood's dreams ; — 
Bright flames arise between the boughs, — 
The perfect moon but half allows 

Its early e 7ening beams ; — 



SONG OF THE* RIVERS. 119 

Our travelers pitch their lonely tent, — 
A prayer devout to Heaven is sent, 

And wearied forms repose ; 
Children, and sire, and matron fair, 
And she who claims their guiding care, 

Glendale's transplanted rose. 

The tide that flows between the camps, 
Silvered by moon and starry lamps, 

Majestic sweep its lines ; 
From snows perpetual — far away — . 
Where hardy trappers rarely stray, 

And frost has dwarfed the pines, 
To ever-blooming tropic groves 
Where man, the friend of nature, roves, 

With love of ease increast ; 
Where fruits perennial blush to lure 
The eye and hand, as when the pure 

First parents spread their feast. 

Father of Waves. The mightiest stream 
That ever caught a starry gleam I 
Behold his countless curves of grace, — 
With one vast gaze of thought, trace 

His stateliness of tide. 
The numbering thousands of his miles. 
The grand remoteness of his isles, 
From rippling source to yonder sweep, 
Where mingling with the ocean deep. 

He claims it for his bride I 



120 SONG OK THE mVEE3. 

The morning sunbeams' purple light 
Pursues the wavering shadows' flight, 

Disseminating day ; — 
Alas I that heart-shades linger still, — 
That life may be a woodland rill, 

Meeting no sunny ray 
Until far wandering o'er the plain 
It may escape the forest train, 

And bound with new delight ! 
Patient, Allien I Though clouded now, 
Thy path grows dim, though stern thy vovf,' 

Trust God for future light. 

With solemn hearts but not f()rlorn, 

The wanderers awake at morn, — 

A raft e'er noontide bears them o'er 

The river to the western shore ; — 

A few days progress, and beside 

Missouri's rival tribute tide 

Their journey ends. Possession marks 

Their home ; ax-riven barks 

Of skirting trees give legal bounds 

To their uncultivated grounds. 

No time is lost, an open space, 

A gentle slope, is th' chosen place, 

The well-selected, sunny spot, 

Where logs soon form a sheltering cot. 

From that day forth a hamlet spread. 
As emigrants were thither led ; 



SONG OF THE RIVERS 121 

And though the Indians' camp-fires gdeamed 
Around it, and the panther screamed 
At night, and muskets primed for fire 
Were grasped by brother, son or sire, 
Peace blessed the region far and near, 
And patient toil dismembered fear. 

A missionary years before 
Had left Atlantic's distant shore. 
By Heaven directed through the wild 
To bless the heathen forest-child. 
Allien her resolution made 
To seek this Christian brother's aid 
Escorted by her guardian's son. 
The last long mile one evening won 
Their steeds pause by a cabin, near 
A lovely lake, whose surface clear, 
Embalm the boughs that o'er it bend, 
And for its watery kiss contend. 

The air is still ; no ruffling breeze 
Sends quivering sunlight through the trees ; 
No woodland whisper, soft and slow. 
Disturbs reflections dark below ; 
The leafy-pictured masses sleep 
Like tired explorer's of the deep. 

A breath, a ripple on the tide !— 
A birch canoe with silent glide 
Darts forward,— eagle plumes appear,— 
A warrior in his proudest gear. 



122 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Bounds on the sloping weedy shore ; 
His bark secured, he strides before 
The cot, sits down upon the grass, 
Shaded by boughs of sassafras. 

Meanwhile the inmates gather near 
The strangers' names or tale to hear ; — 
Their looks and manners well confest 
The new surprise of every breast. 

The missionary round whose brow 
The locks of youth were turned to snow 
With kind, inquiring, gentle mein, 
Imparted courage to Allien. 

' Kind sir, my errand soon is told, — 

An orphan girl in me behold. 

Who from a pilgrim valley come, 

Would teach the Indian in his home : 

Not friendless or alone I traced 

The leagues between with hope and zest ; 

My guides were true and loving souls ; — 

Not far away their cot ; — where rolls 

Missouri from the sunset, we 

Now dwell ; a simple coterie : 

Some moons have waned since there they chose 

The spot whereon the cabin rose ; 

And you, kind sir, will not refuse 

The strength approval may infuse? 

Behold me ready for the task, — 

Jesus will give the grace I ask/ 



bONa OF THE RIVERS. 123 

'Welcome, fair daughter of the East, 

And more, if duty be thy quest I 

Thy form is frail, and young tl\y heart, 

To bear the missionary's part ; 

But storms may leave unhurt the reed, 

When mighty oaks must break and bleed ; — 

According to thy strength thy day, — 

The soul has power that loves to pray/ 

Trembling the plumes above his brow, 
The listening Indian rises now ; 
A deep unyielding fervor lies 
Behind the sable of his eyes ; — 
As from their coral halls may creep 
The subdued waters cf the deep 
To marshal mountain waves in storm, 
So full, expansive grows his form ; 
Speaking, not as the tempest sounds-— 
Not as the echo far rebounds — 
Yet grandly as the sea-tides swell 
When night-winds bid the day farewell. 

*The Christian's Manito is mine. His light 
Broke through my dark, dark heart, and gave it love I 
The red-man's thought is proud — his eyes are blind -^ 
His pride shall fall. A^. clouds are scattered from 
The prairies shall his eyelids be unbound ! — 
God sent tli» maiden. Far across the streams 
Whose waters laugh in Spring-time — far beyond 
The cloudy hill-tops — many moons away — 



124 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

A few brave warriors trode the distance back 

To hunting-grounds once rich — deserted. There, 

Beside our own blue stream, we sat us down 

To sigh — to view the past. This tender bird 

Poured out such strains as sing the pines at night 

When hunters? rest. She wandered through the groves, 

And once — the last — I saw a pale face dare 

Lift his loeah arm to slay the singing bird 

Of Housatonic! Paler grew the* moonlight— 

It withered on the boughs — the midnight's breath 

Was angry — I sprang forth. His guilty path 

I followed. In the deep^ dark woods I broke 

His way. The black and bloody stain — the crime 

Great Manito— tke Christian Manito 

Forbids ; the crime he curses, there was marked 

Upon his coward brow. Then I avenged 

The helpless one. I brought him low. Before 

That moon grew dark our steps had traveled toward 

Our sunset home I Now has she flown 

Back o'er the stream of death, to cheer and bless 

My race I The power of Manito is here ! 

She comes like sunbeams round a chasm dark, 

To tell the chiefs there's death and sorrow near V 

Ah I Retribution I Come it will 
Far every wrong we may fulfill, 
In this life or another. Sin 
May backward hurl its javelin 
And punish in the mortal, or 



SONG OF THE PJVERS. 126 

Its later penalty is sure : 

Ages change not the least design 

Of law or government divine. 

Stelthair, we pity thy sad fate 
But no recall comes by regret j 
Commiseration, sympathy, 
Heals not the spirit's leprosy: 
We would have warned thee — what avail I 
Encased within thy pride's dark mail, 
0, what to thee remonstrance then, 
Thy deadly purpose was so plain I 
0, didst thou not relent, and feel 
The pain redemption's plan may heal ? 
Too late, alas ! to save thy life 
From the assassin's secret knife, 
Who, instrument of Heaven, tliought, 
Avenging innocence, he ought 
Destroy thee thus 1 

Emotions words have ne'er exprest 
O'ercome Allien, and rack her breast ; 
Her bowing head is overwrought 
With deep but yet tumuUuous thought, 
While memory's restoring power 
Concenters on that awful hour : — 
The present lost like lightning flames, 
The past returns with all its aims ; 
Life's shattered hopes are broken chains,—* 
Each link dissevered still remains 



120 SONG OP THE RIVERS. 

Scattered around her pensive feet, 
Pale ruins of her love's defeat. 

Aroused to duty's present call, 
She breaks the spell, escapes the thrall, 
And draws each listener round her near, 
For all her simple words would hear. 

' No time is this for grief and sighs ; 
From sad remembrances I rise, 
To spend my time and strength for those 
To whom I may some truth disclose. 
That hour is gone: — My name. Allien; 
I've wandered to this forest green. 
An alien's child; — my father — he 
Sought exile in a land more free ; 
Crossing the ocean in his youth, 
For love and liberty — sad ruth ! — 
He lives, and my sweet mother, where 
The angels breathe in sinless air.' 

Another morn illumes the Earth ; 
A thousand things of life have birth • 
Wild music echoes through the wood, 
And ripples soft the lake's mild flood. 
Before the sun had tinged the trees 
With beauty's gold auxiliaries, 
When rest made sleep no longer ease, 
And sweetly cooed the mated dove, 
And red-birds piped their notes of love ; 
When whip-poor-wills and owls of night 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 12-^ 

Were coverted from morning light, 
Allien and her young escort stood 
Prepared again to trace the wood. 
Reining their steeds, the last word said, 
They*took the path that homeward led, 
And 'neath the shadowing branches sped , 
Oh ! moral courage nerved her breast 
And gave her lonely journey zest, 
Strengthening a pure heroic mind, 
To bless and benefit her kind. 

Dim, low and small, a shelter rude 
From wind or rain, a temple crude, 
Upon a slope from whose earth-breast 
A hundred oaks have broke the rest 
Of germs invisible and brief. 
To show their heraldry of leaf, 
And grow in power from year to year,— 
Before a lakelet deep and clear, 
A bark-thatched hut in fancy seen. 
Discloses where the kind Allien 
Draws from her energies each day. 
Teaching the young to read and pray. 
They 're Indian children, but they feel, 
And love their instincts will reveal. 
There 's look inquiring in the eye. 
There 's meaning smile and motion shy ; 
They watch the intermingling flow 
Of word and kindness : — as God's bow 



128 SONG OF THE RIVERg. 

Divides the cloud, disparting so, 

By beauty's agency, new light 

From darkness ; they grow bright 

In love's defining medium, 

Set 'tween their native night and them ; 

These infant scions of the wood, 

Of fathers in whose veins the blood 

Of mystic lineage dilates, 

Ignoring all historic dates. 

And in those breasts are warm desires, 

Though latent as volcanic fires 

T\nien long suppressed the flowers may bloom 

On the crater's edge as on a tomb. 

Patient she labors, day by day. 

And studies by the taper's ray 

The few brief phrases that convey 

Her meanings to the little band 

Who seem to love her soft command. 

She seeks by symbol rude and sign 

To fix attention, to combine 

With irksome study, pleasure's cheer, 

Wliile each dark face becomes more dear, 

And eyes flash forth tlieir new delight 

As kindly instincts shine more bright. 

And love rejoicing in its own 

Has warm and more responsive grown. 

Each dusky urchin vies to bring 
The cautured bird of brightest wing, 



SONa OF THE RIVERS. 129 

The snowy egg', the eagle's nest, 
Rare blossoms from the bluffs high crest, 
The'pebble bright and tinted shell, 
And mosses from the cedar dell ; 
Treasures of all those vast domains 
Whoso loss the Indian disdains. 

She taught the Sachem's favorite son, 

Whose turbulence was gently won 

By her inexplicable power, 

As though a thorn might ope fo flower ! 

Too young to string the warrior's bow, 

The chief allowed the prince to go^ — 

To roam alone the unfenced wild, 

To climb the ledge by ages piled, ^ 

And gaze upon the surging tide 

That laved its base, in boyish pride. 

Owasso found the teacher's cot, 
And henceforth daily sought the spot 5 
As wings the eaglet toward the sky, 
Yearning his new-found powers to try. 
His strong, untutored soul awoke 
When to his comprehension spoke 
Some gleams of beauty more refined, 
A wider sweep of heart and mind. 
And struggling germs of intellect, 
Of feeling's ken and self-respect. 
Expanding, answered wisdom's call 
From nature's rule tyrannical. 
6* I 



130 SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 

So wild, and unrebuked; and free, 
Too boisterous for sincerity, 
Owasso now from day to day 
Became more gentle in his play. 

Believest thou the Indian heart 
With all its innate cruel art,— ^ 
Revenge that rests like sheath-hid steel, 
No warming gratitude may feel l 
"When love, or pride, or peace are full. 
The mind not always marks the lull 
Or period brief which then divides 
Bright paths from overwhelming tides :- 
Danger stalks near with lurid brow, 
Arrayed in guise of light, the glow 
Accepted as propitious powers, — 
The heart oft weakest when it flowers 
Most fair and sweetly ! — 0, the cloud 
Of mortal sense, the living shroud 
Of winged spirits, plumed by God 
To traverse his celestial road I 
Disfranchised, shall they find the scope 
Of wisdom's undenying hope. 
One day or hour the storehouse find 
Of knowledge, food for deathless mind? 
Alas ! we wander with slow wings, — 
The bird in sleeping sometimes sings ; 
The dog barks audibly in dreams ; 
Thought then is prison of its themes : 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 131 

Fancy may plead with man and brute, 
That each be less reserved or mute, — 
The muse, though recreant to the tale, 
Consents fair fancy should prevail, 
Yet, hand in hand, they may attend, 
Each be the faint narrator's friend. 

When danger near that hamlet came, 
Commissioned by the dark Segame, 
Owasso sought with paces fleet 
His w^te-browed teacher's wood-retreat : — 

'Segame — my father — Indian chief — 
This morning plucked this paw-paw leaf 
Which o'er his lodge the last moon grew, 
A token of his heart to jon ! 
To yonder hight from all secure, 
Within a cavern's secret door. 
He bids the White Dove's wings to fly, 
Before this sun has left the sky ; 
She there may rest when loudly sounds 
The war-whoop through the hunting-grounds 
Go now with me, my teacher kind, 
Owasso will the panther bind. 
And every beast or bird of prey 
That growls or lurks along our way ; 
Beneath the shadows of the pines, 
All silent when the day declines. 
In safety your light feet shall glide, 
Owasso watching by your side I 



132 SONG OF THE TIIVERS. 

White Dove, have neither fear nor dread ; 
The softest furs shall be your bed, 
The brightest maize, and meat, your food. 
And all our wigwams yield that's good : 
I'll sing when fold your wings to sleep, 
And all night long safe watch I'll keep 1' 

Allien was calm ; it was her sphere 
To curb the quick tumultuous tear ; 
To bid unschooled emotion rest 
Behind the screen. She thus addrest 
Her simple suppliant to deny ^ 

And still preserve credulity ; 

*I thank you, and your father-chief,-— 
I read his kindness in the leaf; 
But come, Owasso, yet again. 
When danger seems to me more plain, 
And then, if needful, you shall guide 
Me safely to your father's side.' 

The boy was gone as light departs 
When thunders flash their fiery darts. 
Was anger there? It gave no trace, 
Except it be that flying pace ; — 
Doubt with the weight it always brings, 
Questioned of trust in savage kings ,- 
But love in that kind soul still plead. 
And softened all its stings of dread, 
By process old as counted time, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS 133 

Invention of no ago or clime, 
No mathematical defense 
Intangible but to one sense, 
Feeling, — of man's fraternity — 
Man's trust in man's humanity. 

^Twas low and wide, that refuge cave, 
Entered where on the lake's coast wave 
A fissure of a frowning ledge 
Yawned o'er its densely shaded edge, 
Which wove a thick umbrageous door 
Fringed high above with mosses hoar 
That hung from granite mottled dark, 
Like spotted alder's glossy bark. 

A few days more. Allien attends 
Owasso, and some Christian friends, 
Fleeing from savage war that nigh 
Has thundered forth its bloody cry. 
Noiseless along the shaded tide, 
In bark canoes at eve they glide, 
The Indian boy their expert guide : 
No other door there seems to be 
Of safety whence they now may flee. 
And when each trembling refugee 
Has safely parsed the cavern's bound. 
Something of kindness have they found ; 
The guests of beings strange and rude, — 
Spirits of shade and solitude, — 
Thinkin.o: no foe will there molest. 



134 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

The hamlet band accept such rest, 
Till warfare, weakened or subdued, 
Tacificates a time-long feud. 

Then days move on so dim and slow 
Self-burdened thought is almost woe ; 
Suspense its steely fetter binds 
Closely around desponding minds 
Whose crushed expansion feverish grows, 
Consuming inward as it goes : 
Imparted tidings meager seem, — 
Doubt more than all disturbs the tnemo 
Of dull confinement, and the heart. 
Poignant in memory, longs to part 
With mortal life's inactive boon, — 
The day all night, the night all noon. 

God made this thousand-stringed frame 

To ivorh, and thus prolong the flame 

Of calorific strength ; refusing 

Vigor and health to weak drones choosing 

The latent name of life, than dowers 

Exuberant with happy powers. 

He bids the thinker think with hands ; 

The plodder use his leathern iKinds ; 

The farmer till his waiting soil ; 

The blacksmith strike his crimson coil 

Of burning iron ; the penman's arm 

Prolong the hierogl^^phic charm ; 

The weaver stock his reedy loom ; 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 135 

The sculptor labor for the tomb, 

When Art seeks rest in beauty's bowers ; 

The builder hew his stated hours 5 — 

God bids the poet seek to use 

His birth-gift from the loving muse, 

And know 'tis not in ideal dreams 

Alone that he must choose his themes ; 

But he must tvorh for human weal — 

Must sorrow from tho mourning steal, 

Singing that others may inhale 

Soft airs from life's Arcadian vale. 

And to the painter from on high 

Unfolds a book of destiny, 

Which, if his soul refuse to read. 

His brush will like a Nile-washed reed, 

Prostrated, soiled, sunburnt and dead, 

Remain when back the tide has fled. 

Hence morbid sufferings come to those 
Imprisoned, with their joys or woes ; 
Fettered but active is the mind, 
Longing to do, each power confined 
Which physical support sustains, — 
Life maddening in their veins. 

The hamlet's late deserted green 
Bids us survey another scene ; — ■ 
A captive chief condemned to die 
Stands 'mid his foes, nor quails his eye 
Before the fierce and proud Segame ; 



136 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Bright as the sacraficial flame 
AATiicli soon around his form may rise, 
It trembles not ; his soul defies 
The waiting torture ; savage v^ill, 
Relentless as the rock-built hill, 
Bids reason nerve the failing sense, 
And pain become its own defense : 
Upon his coldly rigid face 
His nation's stoic type we trace ; — 
He asks no mercy, but desires 
The speedy kindling of the fires. 
While now they bind him to the tree 
And round him dance in fiendish glee, 
Singing a wildly warlike song. 
Eager his sufferings to prolong. 

Inspired by human pity sweet, 
Allien comes from the cave retreat, 
Her soul by heavenly impulse moved, 
Serene and warm because it loved ; — 
Loved not as blossoms smile in dreams ; 
Loved not as sophists love their schemes 
Loved not a« envy loves to name 
The pure with breathings that defame ; 
Not as disputants love the feud, 
Nor with vain glory's amplitude : 
Her love bespoke her heart allied 
To Him from out whose gentle side 
Gushed forth love's pure redeeming tide. 



137 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

She stands before tlie frownin,!!; king' 
A flower beneath a tree in Spring-, 
Pale, delicate, but trusting there, — 
A spirit-bloom from Heaven's mild air I 
She pleads with savage majesty, 
To set the helpless victim free ; 
But how she pleads we may not tell,— 
Vengeance before her soft voice fell. 

Woman dares all things ; few might dare 
In such an hour to linger here ; 
But there is strength imbedded deep 
Within our souls whose forces sleep 
Till danger breaks the untried wall 
And spirit answers spirit's call ; 
Then fear-dismantled, boldly forth 
Tramples th' insignia of Earth, 
And all it threatens : a new name 
By that it does is but its claim : 
Courage kills fear, so wave to wave 
Together flowing, both are brave ; 
One swells the other, they are one 
When the rude rousing storm is gone. 
One wing needs its attending wing j 
Spirit is dual ; if it cling 
To the message breast of destiny, 
Strong, and more strong-, eventually 
It conquers all things, flies one way, 
Success and progress in its sway. 



138 SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 

God's spirit is love, and 'tis a sword 
To vanquish error's iron ccrd ; 
A child may use, a woman wield, 
Both futile else this be their shield, 
'Gainst which revenge may storm its hail 5 
Weakness and love may so prevail. 

The Indian may relent his ire ; — 
Segame forbids the kindling fire ; 
While yet the cloud is on his brow 
He waves his hand, the chieftains bow ; 
Displeasure flashes, and it dies 
Swift as all shades and vagaries 
Disperse when mercy's lucid stream 
Pours forth its countermanding beam. 

From AUien's side Owasso moves 
Toward his father, whom he loves, 
And by his signal cuts the bands 
That hold the victim's feet and hands, 
And forth he walked morosely free, 
His soul saluting liberty, 
As when the Deluge fiat gave 
The whole world's boundary to the wave. 

Time rolls along, released from war, 
Refluent peace smiles near and far ; 
Contentment bringing brighter cheer 
To every hopeful pioneer. 
The Woodvale hamlet with its rude 
Church structure breaks the solitude 



SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 139 

Of isolated grove and plain ; — ■ 
Crowning its cupola, a vane, 
Moving each way with silver gleam, 
Signals the airs' oft changing stream. 
It stands upon the central green, 
And there one day a throng convene 
From the surrounding region ; bands 
Of missionaries join their hands, 
Assembling, each from each to hear 
Kind words, and gain renewing cheer. 
Mingling too with the host are seen 
Forms fierce in aspect, stern in mien, 
Beneath whose guise the soul is wrought 
To cold sublimity of thought, 
Whose deep, inquiring exercise, 
Buoyant with truth, may wave-like rise. 
Maidens are there whose flowing hair 
Invites the fingers of the air 
To toss and bend each ebon strand, 
Eisking no petulant command. 
From brows dark as the chestnut's breast, 
They vail a full, expansive chest. 
Round eyes that ask the warrior's smile, 
Which ne'er have drooped by flattering wile ; 
0, the Indian maid is free, if cold. 
Her heart unbought by pride or gold : 
She roves in joy the groves among 
Singing wild songs in a strange wild tongue ; 
She plucks the flower, nor fears the thorn 



140 SONG OF THE EIVERS. 

Like tender hands to luxury born ; 
Her nude brown feet plash through the wave— 
"VAHien wild-beasts howl her heart is brave ; 
The nig'ht, upon her couch of furs, 
Brings her no ghostly visitors ; 
Robust and strong, her full, glad health 
Is her unguarded, wingless wealth, 
And if her slumbers wake to dream, 
Tis but the lakelet's moonlight gleam. 
Again we've wandered, gentle muse, 
Thou canst not beauty's claims refuse I 
They bring revolt, impromptu strife, 
And gild the sternest phase of life ; 
We hail their potency, and sigh, 
And smile, and pra,ise, with heart and eye ; — • 
No heart may scorn the sentient queen, — 
Her power o'er man was God-forseen. 

A song of praise and faith's repose 

Precedes the Woodvale meeting's close ; 

"When, standing in the open door, 

A man speaks now unheard before ; 

So arbitrary his address, 

It stills all impulse for egress. 

A giant of his athlete race. 

With flashing eyes sweeps o'er the place 

One self-supporting gaze of will, 

And every foot and lip are still. 

Calm as an islet of the sea, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 141 

When soft airs greet it from the lea, 
Like a star in twilight shining dim, 
He spoke, and none upbraided him : 

'Brothers ! The Red-man's home is happy — ^herds 

Of buffalo roam through his hunting-grounds — 

They wait his arrow in the river-vale ; 

The deer starts up before him in the shades, 

The beaver and the otter give their furs 

To warm him in the Winter's cold. To cheer 

His heart the prairies bloom — the showers come 

Upon the waiting earth — the maize springs up 

To bear its yellow grains and give him food. — 

The winds of night perfume the red-man's lodge — 

Long, long the moons have blest his forest home I 

When his Great Father bids him cross the stream 

Beyond the sunset dim — far, far away, 

To those green hunting-grounds where trees ne'er drop 

Their leaves, his bones in our fair valleys rest — 

Birds sing around his grave ! — Ontara must 

Be heard — ^lie says a mighty voice calls back 

The warriors to worship Manito I 

The pale-face has a God — his God is not 

The Indian's Father. Hear I Return— come back, 

Brave brothers, to the love of Manito V 

He ceased ; and ere each swarthy breast 
Througli faith or apathy's attest 
Grows fervent in belief, or chill 
As the inactive frost-bound rill ; 



142 SOXG OF THE PvIVEK3. 

Or minds less dark protest the claim 
Of superstition's waning flame, 
Chanting a low, triumphant song, 
Ontara slowly leaves the throng. 
And we from. this closed scene away 
Through unfrequented paths will stray ; 
We thread the grove, the village bound, 
Walk musing by a burial-ground. 
Where spreads a field of ripening grain, 
And farther, reach a shadeless plain ; 
From thence our steps salute a dell — ■ 
So dense its shade, there broods a spell 
Prophetic of some future night. 
Quelling, — compelling the quick flight 
Of fancy's sunny wing, to bind 
A dark-hued chaplet round the mind. 

Come, ye who love the solemn wood, 
And the mute airs of solitude. 
Where God the all-pervading reigns. 
Where thought accepts the unseen chains 
Binding it to the Infinite, 
Prescient of uninvaded ligh^! 
Worn pathway this, and scarcely seen. 
So lace the boughs their twigs between ; 
Slowly and more slow we tread 
O'er vanquished trunks, moss-grown as dead ; 
Bend back the shades — no sunbeam dwells 
In these old barricaded cells, 
Vast labyrinths where dryads dance, 



SONG OP THE RIVERS. 143 

And elfins court their changing glance ; 

The spell grows deeper, like the hush 

Of earthquake pause, or thought's quelled rush 

Preceding passion's tumult dark, 

When angels of the conscience hark 

To nature's warning, bidding fear 

Be retribution's harbinger. 

Deep, deep descending, dim and drear, 
Ontara's home our steps are near : 
When noon is at its hight, (me smile 
Of sunny day these shades beguile, — ■ 
The beam falls now on the ' Prophet's' hair — 
Behold him stand majestic there. 
Like one bereft, whose memory dwells 
In complaining shrines like sighing shells I 
He seems to mourn, yet not to mourn, 
As though his soul some weight had borne- 
Some natural grief, concealed too well, 
Which nothing outward may dispel. 
But what sometimes most real seems 
Is but like dreams recalling dreams 
Gone when the charmed mind essays 
To fasten their etherial rays I 
So if we ask, we may in vain 
The source of his peculiar pain ; — • 
The seer grieves not for visions past, 
Prophetic gleams that would not last, 
So dark the cloud, so weak the light 
Struggling to break his mental night, 



144 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

That not one foreign grasp may try 
To fix its tangibility ; 
Far denser now than shades that closed 
Around the babe when it reposed 
Upon its tawny mother's breast, 
AVhere smiles bent rarely on its rest, 
When superstition's power began 
To appropriate the growing man, 
And ignorance ne'er left his side 
"While months to years were multiplied. 
Is there no force to break the bands, 
And give the soul its full demands, 
E'en though like Saul, when prostrate falling, 
Sudden and strange its spirit-calling ? 
May not the rudest type of man 
Wisdom and truth be taught to scan? 
Thank Heaven, and Love, and Light, for this, 
The heathen may receive the bliss 
Of intellectual progress ! All 
On whom God's effluence may fall, 
Howe'er debased, may leave behind 
The deadly wilderness of mind. 

An image moves the Prophet's brain ; 
* I must see the pale-face maid again I 
Whence came this bird of tender wing ? 
Her voice is like the sigh of Spring — ■ 
She breathes upon the Indian child — 
His heart before untaught and wild. 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 



U5 



Unused to smiles and tender love, 
Becomes the playmate for the dove 1 
Great Manito I whence comes the power 
Of one so frail— the white young flower?' 

Swelling like seas or unquelled fires, 
Like growing winds or fed desires, — 
Conflict ideal, impetuous strife 
Becomes the spur of his wild life ; 
But yet he fails to comprehend 
How waves may with the ether blend — 
The mortal with the spirit :— There's 
O'er the living tide that bears 
His thought unguided to the sea 
Of wisdom's far immensity, 
Mysterious breezes whispering tales 
Of unknown shores and untried sails, 
Which his lone bark may gain at last, 
And with their anchors his be cast. 

He sees us not. 0, break not now 
This spell by sound or whisper low I 
Truth conquers in God's season. Fret 
Not thou the arrow rankling yet 
In an immortal's bosom, when 
His depth of pain is 'neath thy ken, 
But wait the Spirit's indication 
When thou may'st speak of Christ's salvation. 

There's none to meet the seer when come 
At nigkt or morn to his bark home ; 
T J 



146 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

He lives alone ; no wife or child 
Irradiates his prison-wild ; 
Nor may we nearer pass to view 
The spot where never Saxon shoe 
Has wended : — Cautious, we retrace 
The dark, almost impervious lace 
Of silent nature's cunning fingers, 
But as we go the Spirit lingers ; 
Too damp, umbrageous and too weird 
This place for souls with earth attired. 

A day is gone, — another scene 
Less wild, less calm, no less serene, 
Imprinted on the virgin page. 
Fair fancy's favor may engage. 

Bright sunbeams through an open door 
Fall on a rough but leaf-strewn floor, 
And there's a group with eyes intent, — 
Some wandering glances idly spent, — 
Some ears tuned save to nature's tones, — 
The water's dash, the forest-moans. 
The hawk's blank note, the blue-jay's screami, 
Or thunders rending childhood's dream j — 
Within the circle one more fair, 
With gentle eye and sunny hair, 
With rose and lily on her checks, 
In soft convincing fervor speaks : 
She talks scarce in her native tongue 5 
Most like an incoherent soncr 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 14T 

Of early childhood are the swells 
Of English monosyllables, 
Commingling with the medium .grand — 
The natural voice of that young band. 

Another comes I 'Tis none but he, 
The prophet of the deepening eye : 
His dress is not the warrior's guise ; 
Unplumed his brow ; a strange device 
Of quills and shells adorns his breast, 
Which vibrates slowly in its rest. 

'Maiden I Ontara speaks ! He comes in peace I 
The White Dove's wing stirs all the forest leaves— 
She finds the prophet's home — her smile is like 
The setting sun — it leaves upon his heart 
A shadow dark — it tells of night — the night 
Of Manito I The morning — shall it break? — 
Her words are voices of the singing wood — 
Tliey come — but whence I Ontara may not see I 
They whisper of the " Savior-God" and sing 
Of "Heaven" — her story to the hunter tribes — 
Great Manito has sent it not I He will 
Restrain his curse — he will not harm the Dove I 
But, maiden, hear I There comes a cloud afar — 
Ontara hears its thunders roar — 't will break 
Upon the pale-face — let him now forsake 
The red-man's home, and leave him to his God I 
The Dove flies back to her safe nest to warn 
Her people of the curse of Manito 1' 



143 SONG OF THK RITKRS. 

With softly firm, convincing" tone. 

She anjNWcrs thns the earnest one:— 

'Ontara has a heart sincere, — 

To him these little ones are dear; 

From far away for love 1 canio 

To toll them Jesus' holy iiaino ; 

lie is Uie son of Manito, 

AVho came to live with men below, 

Leaving his Heavenly Father's throno 

To live iu sorrow and alone ; 

And die in pain that man mi^ht bo 

Happy in all eternity I 

Ontara will believe in Him, 

And then his soul that now is dim 

Shall be all love, and peace, and light. 

And sin no more shall cloud his sight,' 

Superstition, truth by chance 
Enrobed in doubt and ignorance ; 
The dark mind's dream of destiny;^ 
Its horror of obscurity : 
Despise it not. nor deprecate 
Its origin and ultimate ; 
Transport it from its e;u-thly load 
On wings of light, to Christ and God. 

The seer ignores the teacher's tone,- 
One silent moment^ he has gone ; 
AVith rapid pace, almost with wings, 
He speeds and up a bold cliff springs 5 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 149 

Confused the tumult of liis mind, — • 

He rushes on, he talks, the wind 

Invokes, tlie trees, the sky ; his frown 

Dispels the rays that gliding down 

Impenetrate the umbrage wild. 

And aggravate this recluse child : 

Now as with him to sympathize, 

Clouds are concentring in the skies, 

Darkening around the distant hills 

Whose hearts sustain migrating rills ; 

Storm-forces marshal mute and fiist, 

The tree-bound arch is overcast j — 

Ontara 'merges from the wood, 

Alone, unlinked in brotherhood 

With social being ; all around 

Is solitary — God 's profound I 

The vocal bird has lost his note ; 

Silent the whispering insect's throat ; 

Each shrub and tree in shadow vailed, 

The trembling wild-flower's cheek is paled : — • 

Troubling the ripples of the lake, 

Nearer the transient thunders break, 

And from their viewless fragments dark 

Fly flames and brieft electric spark ; 

Wind-currents sweep from vale to vale ; 

Accelerating, the wild gale 

Compels allegiance everywhere, 

From wood and water, earth and air . 

Boughs forced to move, their rigid nerves 



150 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Describe new ang'les, figures, curves j 
AMiile maoy a tissued bower is rent, 
And broken branches il3^ing sent. 
And now the storm's prolonging roar 
Commands rain-torrents down to pour, 
And the overwhelming conflict seems 
Designed to waste th' 83rial streams. 

Amid this elemental strife 

Of force unseen, and opaque life, 

As if bereft of all design, 

Standing beneath a slender pine, 

Unbowed in attitude, the seer 

In scorn of tenderness or fear. 

Ever a stranger to alarm, 

Awaits the issue of the storm ; 

His arms are thrown across his breast 

As if to bind his life's unrest ; 

So deep his thought, so deep his eyes 

Conceal the fire that in them lies, 

The soul enthrallment yet unbroken 

Discovers no explaining token. 

He starts as if at once io fly 

A spirit's contiguity I 

But soon expression lifts the band, 

Voice-tones o'er thought's domain command ; 

And while spent nature slacks its chain, 

Abating wind and hail and rain, 

With dignate, measured step he walks, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 151 

And to his own attendance talks ; 



His words his own comphicent ear 
Deems eloquent as they're sincere ; 
As calm as earnest, now they claim 
Truth's semblance, truth to him, the same 
As more enlightened minds may grasp, — 
Light foiling error's subtle clasp ! 

He talks of a grim cavern, where 
He knows the spirit will declare 
As oft to his lone ear before 
The Mighty Father's awful power? 
A wondrous cave, where silence dwells, 
Where darkness knows no light farewells ; 
Where bird, nor beatit, nor living thing 
Has breath, or pulse, or sense, or wing I — 
Realm of uncultured magnitude — 
Pathway to Earth's heart solitude ! 

' 111 lead the tender maiden there — 
She must the Spirit's answers hear : 
The whisper and the thunder tone 
Proclaiming Manito is One ! 
She then will heed Ontara's word, 
And talk no more of Saviour-Lord ! 
Her legend, like the morning rain, 
Will pass, nor blind' her eyes egain ! ' 

Shadows are stealing, longer lines 
Creep toward the East : — the day declines ; 
The prairie's rainbow hues grow dim ; 
The horizon binds a purple rim 



152 SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 

Around a slocp-preparing" world ; 
The hamlet's smoke is skyward curled ; 
The whip-poor-will attunes his note, 
Aromas from the flower-cups float. 

Allien has wandered forth to share 
The soft enchantments of the air ; — 
A scene too fair and pure to last, 
Her vision welcomes from the past 
Whose mystic process — nature wrought — 
Is now tl e alchemy of thought. 

Her path winds toward a forest rill 
Where fays their nectar cups might fill, 
Those fabled sprites credented long 
To live on air and breathe in song I 

Dim shades are gathering ; far and wide 
More cool contracts the lerial tide, — 
Low luUabys entrance the sense 
Through mother Nature's happiness. 
Our fairy sits beside the stream 
Where eddying circles drown the gleam, 
And crimp the shadowed outlines spread 
From sycamores far o'er her head. 
Responsive to rapt evening's powers. 
She loses sense of passing hours ; 
Nor till the birds' last notes are hushed, 
And by her side the grass is brushed 
By human feet, does she arouse, 
Not fearful, but to learn the cause 
Of interruption, stir, or sound, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

When life to her is so profouncl. 

Is it the genius of the glade ? — 
Ontara stands before the maid. 
Rebuking now her pensive mood, 
She breaks the silence of the wood 
By tones whose soft and cheery swell 
No tremblings of surprises tell : 
Smiling she points to the evening star, 
Sparkling 'tween foliage curve and bar, 
And asks the prophet what they are — 
Those lights above the Indian's home, 
Guiding his feet when far they roam. 

He gazes skyward, then his eyes, 

As when the lightning's arrow flies. 

Are drooping — darkened : he is blind. 

0, there's a wilderness of mind 

More dark than Huron's fir-black groves, 

Where stealthily the panther roves ; 

To liberate its ccptlve shore, 

* Where serpents hiss and monsters roar,' 

Where th' Infinite delays to dawn 

O'er thought's chaos, creation's morn ; 

To wrest it from piratic bands 

Of sin and ignorance, whose hands 

Would chain it from progression's strife, 

Were glory for the longest life I 

Allien is pondering, waiting still 
The answer of Ontara's will j 



153 



154 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

But stands in silence that dark one, — 
To anarchy his thoughts have run I 



Alas ! diverted from our theme, — 

Patience, kind reader, 'tis no dream I 

A word has burst the pent-up tide 

Of patriotic love and pride ; 

Has sorrow's urn un wreathed to view. 

Where fall yet undisturbed, anew, 

The distillations of a heart 

That cannot bid the cause depart : — 

Pardon we need not ask of thee, 

The awful, dread reality, 

Long ere this simple page may meet 

Thy frowning glance or favor sweet, 

May change a nation's destiny, 

And choke with blood its onward way ! 

May wring a million hearts with woe. 

And through its own inherent foe I 

Alas I My native land, that thou 

To direful civil war must bow ! 

That brother must 'gainst brother stand, 

To sever such a starry band I 

That o'er our fair dishonored States 

The Angel of Doom now darkly waits 1* 

That wild Rebellion reckless pours 

* llarch, ISOl. 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 155 

Disgraceful ruin on our shores I 

Is there no intervening power 

To give Hope's prescience to the hour — 

To dissipate portending death, 

And quell Columbia's fever-breath? 

Unfold we not the sealed scroll 

O'er whose spread page the years may toll 

Undying requiems for the slain 

Of many a red rebuking plain ; 

But hear you not faint moans from far, 

Nature's combined regrets for war, — 

The knell of hearts too true and brave 

To stand inert around the grave 

Of freedom's proud fraternity, 

And see her banded Empire lie 

Vanquished, for History's long scorn, 

Bidding no more Republics born? 

We wait the issue : Heaven ! how long ?— 

burden of the patriot's song I — 



Return we to our former strain, 

Salute remoter scenes again : 

The seer, as if his soul were blind, 

As if he felt the blight of mind, 

No answer gave : — Allien now bends 

To seek the path that homeward tends, 

While no weak fears her heart betide ;— 



15G SONG OF THE EIVEES. 

Ontara moving by her side, 
She asks the Indian name for trees, 
For sky, for cloud, for evening breeze, 
And thus diverts the conflict crude 
Which agitates his nature rude, 
Calming the life-tides of his breast 
Though dark as ocean be their rest, 
Surging far down through unknown deep, 
^Neath surface calms that briefly sleep. 
At length they reach the cheerful cot, 
Her mission home, a friendly spot ; 
Beneath the stars' fraternal light 
She turns to bid the sage ' good-night ;' 
Moving her hand with gentle art, 
A signal that he now depart : 
But his demeanor, urgent, strong, 
The interview would yet prolong ; 
And while her eyes bend on him still, 
As if to fathom that dark will. 
As if she were less fair and frail. 
He speaks ; and 'tis no gentle tale 
Of love or friendship, rest or hope, 
With which her doubting heart might cope ; 
He tells her of that distant cave 
Where breaks no sound of life — the grave 
Of noiseless airs and waters dim. 
Where the Spirit oft has answered him I 
Ontara there will test the plan 
And story of the Savior-man j 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 151 

Will to her willing senses show, 
By words sent forth from Manito, 
That all is false, and but a dream 
Like glow-worms o'er a darkened stream. 
If she with him will seek the cave, 
The prophet's trust she thus will save I 
His broken words his meaning tells 
Imparted from a breast that swells 
With more than innate savage pride 5 
For that pure being by his side 
Is kindred by Creative Hand, 
And weaves around his grosser mind 
Soft powers to it all undefined. 
So pearl-like pebbles, and opaque, 
And sandy ones the waves may break 
Mingle upon the ocean's shore, 
In brotherhood forevermore. 

What means the Indian's strange request ? 
His purpose has sincere attest I 
There's for his faith some natural cause, 
Fulfillment of Jehovah's laws ; — 
There may be sound of falling wave 
Remote, unseen, within the cave, 
Or some weird echo may perchance 
The listening prophet's soul entrance ; 
And these may Heaven's forerunners bo 
Of truth in mystic imagery. 
When scales shall fall from unbound eyes 



158 SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 

Before redemption's mysteries. 

Allien fears nothing by his side, — • 
Would safely trust him as her guide 5 
Nor is her faith in him so rare, 
For woman's trust is everywhere. 

The seer departed undenied, 
The morn's conclusion to abide : 
Allien is musing while a cloud 
Draws o'er the rising moon its shroud, 
Mute memory hails the long ago — 
* Go forth, my child, to duty goP 
An angel mother's soul again 
Had breathed its soft persuasive strain, 
Approaching from her Heavenly sphere, 
Her child's still tender minister ; 
And she assenting falters not, 
Eesolves to seek the mystic grot, 
Ere morn for noonday's glare recedes, 
To follow where Ontara leads. 

'Tis Autumn : — ' Twas but yesternight 

The Summer sun withdrew its light, 

Yet bright with morn Apollo rose. 

In harvest promise, to disclose 

Light's corresponding rainbow crest 

Wreathing the circle of the west. 

While dews and sweets of flowers are blending 

The maiden and her guide are wending, 

Earnest, alone, their forest way, — 



SONG OP THE RIVERS. 159 

They roam as nature's children stray, 
Where streamlets babble cheerily, 
Where fawn and squirrel bounding free, 
Disturb not the song-birds' melody. 

Four days they journey through the wild ;— 
Each night Ontara fagots piled, 

Whose friendly flames dispersed the gloom, 

A.nd checked the owl's dolorous tune. 
At midnight, when the panther's scream 

Broke on her half-remembered dream. 

Or the wild-cat rent the stilly air 

Like some lone goblin of despair , 

Allien, upon her couch of boughs, 

Affrighted briefly, feared the cause ; 

Perception quickened, fine, intense. 

Attenuating every sense. 

Until the potency of prayer 

Brought peace, and home, and safety thera 

Morning ! Glad harbinger of truth I 

Beauty and health, perpetual youth, 
•inspire thy soul, illume thy brow. 

Which bids the sorrowing disavow 

Misanthropy and discontent, — 

Grief's absolute abandonment. 

No hand so bountiful as thine, 

Can Peace invoke to deck her shrino 

With lillics fair and spirituelle, 



160 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Olive, and bay, and immortelle ! 

Advancing on their cheerful way, 

They reach a bluff ere noon of day, 

Where by Missouri's restless side 

A birch canoe is safely tied : 

Coast gliding slowly with one oar, 

One mild, forgetful hour or more, 

They landed where the waters lave 

The time-wrought bulwarks of the cave ; 

Near where the ' Father's ' noble breast 

-Accepts the rival, wave-carest; 

Where Mississippi's northern blue 

Receives another's staining hue ; 

But still for many a mile sustains 

Preponderating azure veins ; 

E'en as pure souls resisting long, 

AVeary before temptation strong, 

When nevermore their vestal birth 

Repudiates the stain of Earth. 

Here far as vision may descry 

Behold a wild sublimity ! 

Huge trees, gray, angulated rocks, 

Fragments of post-diluvian shocks, * 

Gnarled trunks uptorn by Borean powers, 

Green matted brush and straggling flowers, 

O'erhanging vines and lichens red, 

And mosses like crimped emeralds spread, — 

In thick profusion thrown and grown. 

To art's chaste empire all unknown. 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 161 

The bird of many voices* sung ; 
The jay's shrill note through shadows rung ; 
The oriole's charming lay, 
Uniting with the red-bird gay, 
Composed an Orphean roundelay. 

Now clambering down a shelving rocky plane, 
They pass within a dim and strange domain 
Meeting contesting airs and currents chill, 
Which to the frame impart a feverish thrill j — 
No silver-clouded or cerulean skies 
Shed lusters on their path ; ungemmed it lies 
Where never springs the dew-invoking grass 
The rainbow's emerald glories to surpass : 
No stir of breeze, no hum of insect throng, — 
Sound I sound ! There is no sound. 'Tis death—* 
The stillness that succeeds departed breath. 
Is danger here ? No specter haunts the eye 5 
Shades of no living monsters they descry, 
But all along their rocky, winding way. 
Bold fragments, relics grand their eyes survey : 
Vast broken column, dark worn battlement, 
Which struggled while the shaft of ages spent 
Its purpose, with the constant flowing wave, 
Extending slow the region of the cave. 
Kude corridors and arches huge behold, 
Where royal diamonds never flashed in gold 5 

*The American "bird of many voices, that laughs at the eloquence of 
man.— Wilson's 'Tales of the Border and of Scotland.' 



162 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

MHiere pleasure's purple wine-cups never foamed ; 

Where beauty's dancing foot-fall never roamed ! 

Beneath yon nature-frescoed roof no sound 

Of revel ever broke the cool profound, 

Since conquering darkness spread its empire far, 

Unsoftened by one ray of moon or star. 

And till the subtle force Jehovah wields 

Plows up again these subterranean fields, 

The casual torch and feeble, lights alone 

This wondrous handiwork of days unknown 1 — 

If known to history 'tis now forgot ; 

The fire of prophecy illumed it not, — 

A page chronology may never claim. 

But on that lofty frieze behold its Maker's name ! 

In period remote these chambers grim. 

Defiant, shouted their chaotic hymn. 

When sleeping forces moved their unpent bound, 

And wandering left no record to expound. 

These rocks are symbols of His power — 

The Wonderful, who reared the mountain's tower ;- 

God's autographs on nature's unsealed scroll 

Which ne'er to human vision may unroll. 

0, endless mysteries ! 0, dreadful gloom ! 

0, tenfold dread of death and such a tomb I 

Hence, spectral thoughts ! Ye fancies crude, retire,- 

Enkindle not the mind's consuming fire I 

Ontara and Allien descend, or climb, 
In silence and oblivious of time, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 163 

Until their torches cast their lurid quiver 
Across a dark, a still, Lethean river. 
Which frowns upon tly^^'r vray as though its glide 
Came from the depths of Hades terrified I — 
Embarking in a lov7 canoe, they pass 
Slowly across its plane of ebon glass, 
Between vast mural walls, stern, jagged, gray, 
A hundred fathoms ^neath the realm of day I 

Allien is solemn ; slow the paddle's dip 

Impels the mimic solitary ship, 

•AVhile superstition's all-controlling tranco 

Enchains the dark Ontara's lip and glance. 

She sings, ' Praise God from whOm all blessings flow 

Praise him all creatures here below J 

The human harmony an instant gone. 
Returns with loud-toned echoes, on and on 
Each note and word repeated o'er and o'er, 
Makes populous the arch, and wave, and shore. 

And now they reach a pebbly strand, 
Whereon their careful footsteps land ; — 
Tracing a wilder rocky way, 
A narrower path, still on they stray; 
No question from Allien disclosing 
Late thoughts of danger ; still reposing 
On Heaven's protecting' iirm, she bears 
Within her soul her few faint fears. 

Murmuring some broken accents low, 
Somber the leader pauses now, 



164 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Where huge stalactites, roughly grooved, 
Have age on age remained unmoved, 
Old mile-stones for the monster gnomes 
Who hasted to their unknown homes, 
When lame disorder, wild and glad, 
Raved unrebuked, demoniac, mad, 
Perchance before Creation's morn. 
Ere Earth's young loveliness was born. 

The prophet stands by one rough base, 
Determined purpose in his face ; 
Concealing well his soul's unrest, 
Invokes the spirit-proven test : i 
His left arm lain upon the shaft, 
His right upraised as if to waft 
The invocation up to Heaven, — • 
His voice the dark still air has riven : — 

* Art thou alone, great Manito?' 
The echo answers, ' Manito.^ 
With firmer tone he speaks again. 
And louder swells th' inquiring strain : 
'Great Manito, he is but one !^ 

* Great Manito, he is but one.^ 

And now a wdiisper moves his tongue ; 
Those far retreating aisles among 
The gentle answer come in strains. 
Of wild, mysterious refrains : 
*The Christian legend — it is false I' 

* The Christian legend — it isfalseJ 



SONG OP THE RIYERS. 165 

Now by the torches' unfixed gleaming, 

Allien discerns tli' exultant beaming 

Of soul-wrought eyes, dark orbs of pride, 

Which confutation's power defied ; — 

And then his voice the silence breaks : 

*The White Dove hears — the Mighty speaks!' 

A moment mute, her soul in prayer, 
His young companion asks still there 
The omnipresent God to send 
His spirit error's bonds to rend ; 
Then with no weak or trembling tones, 
But more of strength than woman owns 
When cherished by affection's care, 
Breathing * sweet home's' protecting air, 
She lays her hand upon the stone, 
Eepeating, 'Jesus is the Son,' — ■ 
The echo answers, ' is the Son/ — - 

* Of God, the Christian's Manito, 

Who came to save the world from woe.' 

* Who came to save the world from woeJ 
She whispers, 'Is the story true?' 

A murmur says, ' the story true? 



Still as may sleep a buried wave, 
Silent and somber as the cave. 
With no reflex of heavens blue, 
Ontara from tlic darkness drew, 



166 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

With leading stop the tired xiUien, 

Who longed for visions bright and green ; 

As from the cavern they emerge, 

Low sunbeams from the western verge 

Illume the vistas of the wood, 

Enlivening all the solitude : 

Wild nature's charms have treble power 

In that appreciative hour ; 

Beauty withdrawn, three-fold the more 

^Tis loved in memory than before. 

Bewildered by the darkness' loss 

She sinks upon a bed of moss, 

Stifl watching his averted look 

Or transient glance, as though a book 

Revealed to her inquiring eye 

Erudite truth or mj^stery. 

Stern, fixed, unyielding, proud, 
The seer there stands with head unbowed ;— 
Forbidding overture, or tone 
Remonstrative, by his dark frown : — 
A sudden change, — 0, strange compelling ! 
A softer influence upward welling ; 
Another formula now tells 
His thought's new oracles I 

'The eagle's ear may list a voice that flows 

Like Minneliaha's silver singing tide ; 
As mild as Cautantow ;' 

* The soulh-west i^iud. 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 16t 

The Indian-Summer when the streams are wide I' 

Bowing to his sincerity, 
Overwearied, she defers reply, 
But bids him kindly then prepare 
The meal of which she needs to share ; 
And soon the simple task is done, — 
Shaved morsels of dried venison, 
Honey and cakes of pounded corn, 
Answers the want with nature born : 
And soon the tent of fur is spread, 
'Neath which a fair and trusting head 
Laid on a pillow of pine leaves, 
Her safety to Jehovah gives. 
Dry boughs are kindled, then the. seer 
Lies down to healthful slumber near, 
A tree his canopy, the ground 
The softest couch he would have found. 

The dawn has wasted, wanes the day ; 

They Ve wandered far upon their way : — 

Ontara moody strides along. 

The maiden's voice breaks forth in song ; 

A song of home, of the bright, brief past, 

Ere her early sky was overcast : 

The opening notes were warbled slow, 

Her peaceful souPs most natural flow ; 

But soon, as if some stronger thought 

Her sensibilities inwrought. 

More loud and ire j rang out the sound 



.168 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

In the choral's rich, melodious bound : 
The cadence floating distant clear, 
Fell softly on a fainting ear ; 
*I hear an angel's rapturous tone/ 
Murmured a lone and dying one. 

Ceases the song ; still on they bear 5 
The travelers fear no danger there ; 
They pause before a fern-loved rill, — 
Is it their drinking-cups to fill ? 
"What chains the prophet's sable eyes ? 
The mute Allien — what her surprise ? 
Is the panther near, crouched low to slay 
His unoffending human prey ? 
Or human foe has Ontara seen, 
In ambush through th' imperfect screen? 

Their pause is brief: they're moving now,- 
Observe the gentler being bow 
Beside a fair and wasted form, 
Whose nerveless hands with faint life warm, 
Upon her panting bosom prest. 
Give soothing sense to its unrest. 

* Speak, sister — 'tis a friend would know 
Thy name, thy home, perchance thy woe I 
tell me, has a treacherous hand 
Conveyed thee from thy native land ? 
Look up, dear girl : discard thy fear — 
Speak low, and I each word will hear j 
Whisper thy talc of joy or pain, 



COXG OF THE RIVER3. 169 

And God may give thee strength again I' 

A look that Heaven and Earth combmed 
Revealed the power of each enshrined 
In that sad soul, serene and young ; 
A few faint words escaped her tongue, 
Meeting like unseen waves of air 
A corresponsive answering there ; 
Enlivening by the love she felt 
Warmino^ in her who o'er her knelt. 



^CD 



My home is near across the glade 
Musing but weak, too far 1 strayed ; 
The only home I have below' — 
I talk not of another now : 
'Tis an Indian's roof that shelters me, 
But far away I soon shall be ; — 
Hast thou come from that celestial land, 
Leaving, for love, thy angel band ? ' 

Silent, Ontara waiting by, 

Watches the twain with wondering eye, 

Disturbing not the holy scene, 

Till by a signal from x\llienj 

He moves to bend his athlete form, 

And bind each dusky sinewy arm 

Around the fragile, stricken girl, 

While toys the air with each soft curl 

That backward falls from her classic head,- 

To bear her on with careful tread ; 



no SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Her attendant walks so gently by, 
The sufferer's heart forgets to sigh ; 
Soon through the lowly cottage door 
They pass, the one to pass no more, 
Save what remains when life has fled. 

Gathered around that dying bed, 
Expressionless some dark ones stood ; 
Statues, not souls of brotherhood. 
So mute, so cold, so fixed in mien, — 
So tearless by that tearful scene ! 
Passion concealed, it bore no trace 
In lineaments of the warrior face ; 
And, dark-browed too the matron sat, 
Watching the maiden's dying fate. 
The pale one moves as if to speak. 
Her closing eyes, but 0, so weak I 
Another bends her ear more low, 
Catching the fading tones that flow 
In whispers from those lips as white 
As roses in the moon's pale light, 
And broken like a dream of song, — 
A half-told tale of sorrowing long : 

'Maiden, I know not who thou art. 
But, oh ! thou hast a kindly heart I 
Like sister Bertha, lost, and dear,' — 
Her eyes are dimmed with love's last tear,- 
' Like her thy voice and manner are ; — 
0, I have seen thee oft afar ! 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 171 

Slie died beneath the skies of France 

When vines were green in Summer's glance : 

Exiles from our delightful land, 

My parents joined a pilgrim band ; — 

They 'scaped the ocean's furious wave, 

The river its cold burial gave, 

Far toward the South, where, broad and deep, 

Its curving currents proudly sweep, 

Wandering in grace and power around 

A hamlet and a lofty mound. 

I, clinging to a floating oar. 

Was wafted to the stranger shore, — 



Kindly this cot has sheltered me, 
But years have worn, oh ! gloomily, — . 
Now all is well ; rejoice the same, 
Though marble never know my name ; 
'Tis thine to keep, to speak no more, — 
At home they called me Isidore ; — 
Now memories flash their bright brief spell 
From my beautiful past I loved too well 1 — 
Adieu, adieu, — 0, thou hast come 
To plant wild flowerets on my tomb, 
And we shall meet above the skies, 
Eobed in the bloom of Paradise 1' 

The faint voice ceased, another tone 
Breathed softly near the dying one ; 



112 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

An angel melody of prayer, 
Bringing the court of Heaven there: 
Clasping the lingerer's thin ]iand, 
As though of one ethereal band, 
Together they might hail the spheres 
That roll beyond the Vale of Tears, 
Allien invoked eternal peace, 
And for that soul a calm release. 

The prophet stood in awe that proved 
His being by that death-scene moved ; 
Softened by supplication's breath, 
Which told of Christian hope in death,' 
Till borne on faith's upbearing tide, 
Prayer's last aspiring murmur died 
To mortal's gross discernment, while 
Angelic legions caught its smile: 
Life's faintest quiver alternates 
With death's, till each abates 
Their visual uncertainties 
And the untrammeled spirit flies 
Where no return a tale hath spoken, — 
Earth's native links forever broken. 

Gently the forest turf is laid 

On the mortal rest of the lovely maid. 

While wildly floats an Indian song 

From the solemn lips of that dark throng ; 

The homeless one is left to sleep 

Where flickering rays through wood shades creep, 



SONG OF THE RIVEKS. 173 

Prom year to year, from Spring to Spring ; 
Where no loved one's hand shall ever bring 
A wreath of flowers, or urn of tears, 
Till the resurrection morn appears* 

Two days have told their beading hours, 
No cloud o'er the sea of sunset lowers ; 
Wrapped in the twilight's soft gray gloam, 
Our travelers have found their home. 
Morn wakes again, great freedom's voico 
Bids all the powers of life rejoice ;— 
The Autumn's shortening pathway telb 
Ketiring beauty's new farewells. 

Owasso wanders forth to greet 
His teacher with an offering sweet, 
Of blossom wild and fragrant bough, 
His heart entranced he knows not how : 
They meet, now where the brooklet turns 
To hide its silver 'neath the ferns, 
Pleased recognition in each eye ; — 
Something of love and gallantry 
Inspires bestowal cf the gift, 
Gathered from wood and rocky rift. 

Ontara too — he comes again, 
And spirit-broken seems his strain : 
Ilis forest home is meager now 
To satisfy thought's higher flow, 
Whose new demand is like a tide 
That bursts a mountain basin's side, 



174 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

And disintegrates sand or rock, 
To scatter for its vapory flock, 
Rushing to valley freedom, where, 
Sun-kissed, it gilds the ambient air. 

'AYhite Dove I Ontara speaks again — his ncart 

Is moved — there's darkness yet, but morning comes ! 

The Indian's Manito no more looks down. 

The voices of the pines are not his tones 1 

The sunshine darkens — where is Manito? 

The talking of the waters — his no more 

The prophet's pathway through the lonely wood — 

'Tis like the trail of death. Maiden I 'T will end. 

The Son of God — he answered in the cave 1 

Ontara's pride is broken — he believes I 

The Christian maiden died in peace — in light I 

A brighter land is her's ; — Dark, dark — 

Ontara's way is cloud — he sees the light 

Afar I The Christian's God is his — he prays I' 

The boy has listened ; simplest speech 
That may their comprehension reach 
Is from the teacher meek and mild, 
Addressed the man, heard by the chil 1. 

She talks of Jesus : — How can one 
So young, so tender, so alone. 
So frail and mortal, take the theme 
Of love-redeeming, and of Him, 
Man's everlasting friend, discourse 
With such enlightening, kindling force ? 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 



n5 



How ask me ! His pure lips have said, 

Wlien he for our salvation bled, 

* As the great Father loves the Son, 

So ye who love, in me are one I' 

And, ' Whatsoe'er ye ask in me 

In faith believing, ye shall see 1'* 

For Him who blushed the wave to wine ; 
Who made blind eyes awake and shine ; 
Who called dead Lazarus from his grave, 
And childhood's flesh of beauty gave 
To leprosy ; who, on the cross 
Of agony, forgave man's loss 
Of pity, kindness, faith and love, 
And bade the thief find joy above ; 
Whose acts were miracles, whose word | 
Is wisdom,— for this sovereign Lord, 
By truth's perpetual certain rays, 
To fill that Indian's soul with grace, 
Think you it were a marvel task ? 
'Tis almost sin that thus we ask. 

"With life, and bloom, and music-tone, 
Joy-ladened Spring comes speeding on ;— 
Month after month has worn away. 
Since sunset claimed that Autumn day 
When first the Indian prophet's voice ^ 
Proclaimed the Savior-Lord his choice,* 
And true, his soul from that glad hour, 
Has proved the Spirit's wakening power. 



176 SOXG OF THE RIVER3. 

Woodvale awoke one fragrant morn, 
Some with the sun, some with the dawn. 
Both young and old, morose ox gay, 
To welcome those from far away : 
Before the rustic church has been 
A platform spread upon the green, 
And simple rough-hewn seats await 
The band that thither congregate. 

Fragrant and soft the vernal air 
Kisses the heads uncovered there, 
Kesting on braid or curling-hair. 
Age o'er some brows a silvery wreath 
Of luster adds to lids beneath, 
And bronzed and sunken cheeks present 
Luxury's long abandonment. 

Missionaries gathered to confer, 
And each the other's work to cheer ; 
Hunters — a few from wilds remote 
Have come on foot, or rowed in boat — 
From log-built homes the pioneer ; 
Indians from haunts afar, or near ; 
Matrons, and maids, and children young. 
Diverse in beauty, week and strong j — 
Allien is there, — a few dim years 
Have left no trace of sorrow's tears ; 
Her life's content has given employ 
To perfect peace, preserving joy, 
Which gem-like from youth's casket throws 



I 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. Ht 

A prism wreath of dazzling glows. 

In readiness, th' assembled throng 
Unite their varied powers for song, 
A simple lay that breathes of love 
Eedeeming, and its home above : 
It closes ; brief the concert-pause, 
When words unasked abruptly rose : — 

* Ontara, prophet of the tribes, has come — 

He tells Jehovah's children of his peace I 

Tlie white-man's God in his. Allien — the dove 

Of Manito — the Christian maid — she spoke. 

Jesus, the Son of Manito, looks down ; — 

He gives the voice of prayer. Her love— it broke 

The darkness of Ontara's soul. 'Tis light ! — 

Ked brothers, hear the words of truth ! Believe I 

This light will save my people — they must pray. 

God, the Great Spirit, will forgive their sins — • 

His Son will save their souls from death 1' 

He ceased : Still do his eyes the scene survey 

And rest on her who taught his lips to pray ; 

Then strangely to her ear a soft, sweet tone 

Came back as half-forgotten songs return :— 

'Allien ! The diamond in the darkest mine 

Forgets not ever it has power to shine P 

The words, though like a sudden sorcery 

Breaking the passing hour's serenity, 

Produced no fainting, no impulsive rush 
8* L 



178 SONG OF THE RIVEI13. 

Of recognition, but a silent flush 

Of unexpected pleasure, while the past 

In panoramic motion overcast 

The much-changed present, all its joy, its grief, 

Its hopes, that faded like an August leaf, 

Illumined through her heart's o'ermantling screen, 

Succeeded each the other, 'and the might have been! 

Yes, Mortimer was there I His pensive brow 

Still fair as when he breathed his early vow ; 

Uis deep blue eyes, as eloquent, still told 

His unstained manhood, — all thev could unfold. 

The moon had risen. Peace abroaa 
Walked viewless o'er the mead and road, 
Mingling its glow with Luna's sheen, 
Like love and joy, for sweet Allien, 
Companions traced the same smooth way, 
As they had walked one by-gone day, 
Though rarer now to each they speak 
In whispers near each other's cheek. 
Till rest they on a moss-grown rock, 
O'er which a widely branching oak 
Sustains its shadow ; — 'tis not night 
To hearts so filled with love's delight 1 

'Allien, that morning long ago. 

Whose memory, like the sun-kissed flow 

Of valley streams, to me has been, 

Through pain and cloud, a hallowed scene ; — 

Comes it not back this night to thee, 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. ■»■»*' 



Witli love's asserting potency? 
0, tell me, sweet, didst tlioii forget 
The wanderer who loves thee yet?— 
0, since my heart's warm tendrils clung 
Round thee, my gentler self, I've sung 
One strain in all my thoughts of love :— 
'Allien is mine, we'll meet above V 
Now God has blessed my thorny way 
And crowned it with this joyous day. 

Yes, dearest, He who strung love's lyre, 
Who kindled its immortal fire, 
Uniting hearts by living ties 
To live as one in Paradise, 
Mid error, disappointment, death, 
Pure love— the essence of His breath— 
Has indestructible, eternal made ; 
'Tis not a casual theme unweighed 
By soul-intelligence and power ; 
It dies not like a withering flower,— 
It is the music of the spheres. 
And knows not country, home, nor years 
If these essay to break, or part 
Fond souls that beat as one warm heart ; 
Commingling like two clouds of even, 
When two in one begin their Heaven 1 

Dear angel of my waiting years ! 
Pearls rare- and priceless are these tears : 
Giving my heart a full consent 
To blils united— love's content. 



180 SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 

Strange prescience of this hour was mine 
When, unrebuked, my heart would twine 
Wreaths, flowery structures, shadowy bloom, n 
Dispelling all the present's gloom I 
Now, blest reality, I claim 
No richer gift, no boon of fame ; 
Kind Heaven has sent thee to my arms, 
And life and earth renew their charms I' 

She answers him : — *I did not know 
I loved you in that long ago ; 
My morning years were chilled with gloom, 
When called to mourn each parent's tomb, 
And youth's first blight of early love j 
But I have looked for rest above. 
When first I met thy gentle smile 
On life's dim sea, it was an isle 
Of beauty, — an oasis green 
Upon the desert's burning sheen : 
Not then I knew its untried power , 
Not then T thought of this sweet hour : 
My inexpressive being dwelt 
Ir^ dreamy vistas ; it had felt 
A natural love's youth-pictured flow 
While yet concealed its barb of woe ; — • 
Scarce parted we when tidings came 
Which sealed my lips o'er one dear name, 
■ And through my three-fold mourning weeds, 
My spirit rose to higher deedsj; 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 181 

And life was duty. Then again 
Allured by love, I found but pain ; 
My heart pursuing- ideal light, 
Became involved in thorny night ; 
Groping for friendship pure as mine, 
Another's hate became its shrine j 
But I, my own possessing still, 
Escaped that blind, perverted will ; 
Disfranchised, wandered o'er the Earth, 
To find — true love's untainted worth.' 

Again he speaks : ' Wilt thou resign 
All other hopes of love for mine ; 
Let thy sweet soul embrace my own, 
The last, the nearest — only one — 
In all the future, good or ill, 
Who may thy dreams of love fulfil ? 
Love thrives in lone and desert air, 
When God and truth unite the pair ; 
And in this wilderness may we 
Grow strong in its felicity ; 
Here bind and feel the purest joy 
The world may know, freed from alloy 
Of fashion's strife, or envy's sighs, 
The jewel happiness our prize I ' 

*If I my own fond heart do know. 
Too happy be its impulse now. 
Loving but thee. 'Tis like a fount 
Long sealed within a shaded mount. 



182 J50NG OF THE RIVERS. 

O'er which has moved thy magic hand. 
And bursting forth at its command, 
The tide must evermore for thee 
Flow gently on, instinctively I 

Persuaded now, I love thee more 
Than all my heart has asked before ; 
Sweet friend, I claim but time to prove 
The full devotion of my love 1 ' 
When souls are blended, angels smile, 
And Earth's great heart is glad the while : 
The bright material mother keeps 
Her loving watch, nor ever sleeps 
When arms long kept from one embrace 
Are years in finding the one place 
Each pair may twine : — And now she binds 
Kound these clasped forms and mingled minds 
A halo of approval, fair 
As aught that in the planet's air 
May glow in beauty, though unseen, 
Save to those eyes that look between 
The spirit's infinite and sense ; 
Who see with vision pure, intense, 
Through bands that to some souls must be 
Ever a spirit mystery. 

And we perchance look on this scene 
With eyes too rude, though not, I ween, 
With dull emotion. Have we loved ? 
Have we the world's elixir proved ? 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 183 

And be our verdict like the mass 
Who 'love/ but fail to keep just pace 
With love's fast ripening fruits ? What task I — 
All credulous — whom do we ask 
Now for the wealthy estimate 
Of love that never bled to hate, 
Or faded to indifference ? 
Who for the weight of love's suspense 
Ere yet its tale was fully told, 
Whose balance never rose with gold ? 
Vain questions I Each tried heart 
Beating its own 6'erwearied part, 
Has known or yet may know the strain 
Of such experimental pain ; 
Transporting pathos of warm thought 
Which with each nerve of feeling wrought , 
Imparts to its elected one 
The fervor it will ne'er disown. 

A few glad months have changed the scene — 

We sing the bridal of Allien ; 

Winter, with snowy footstep, bore 

Diurnal treasures to the shore 

Of time departed ; warming gleams 

Built castles for the Summer's dreams, 

And Spring smiles newly on the tide 

Of life and all its worthy pride : 

Brighter the month of roses shines, 

Edging with gold the forest pines. 



184 SONG OF THE RIVERS. 

Than all before, 
To her whose centered soul has found 
The heart with her's by nature bound, 

Love asking all no more 1 
The rich, vast earth no treasure, holds 
So precious as - the silken folds 

Her raptuous fancy binds ; — 
0, ardency, complete, serene I 
So perfect it hath rarely been, — 

Union of hearts and minds. 



That pensive orb which long" ago 
Bathed Eden with its evening glow ; 
Whose hallowing lusters all divine, 
With time grow holy, softer shine, 
Gives the only pearls to her braided hair, 
Silvering the wreath of evergreen 
That, bathed in moonlight, crowns Allien. 
No orange-bloom or fabric rare, — 
No woven vail sustains the charm 
Around her slender graceful form ; 
No fair attendants strew with flowers 
The pathway of the nuptial hours : 
Her 'maids' are but the zephyr's wings, — 
All hushed her heart's past murmurings ; 
Her sweet soft cheeks are calm and pale ; 
Her bright eyes shine from lids too frail ; 
Her lips are tinted with the dyes 



SONG OF THE EIVERS. 185 

Azaleas* wear 'neatb April skies : 
Few friends are gathered round the pair 
Whose lives are one united prayer j 
'Tis love's most simple festival, 
Where words of Christian kindness fall 
From hearts to sacrifice resigned, — 
The gentle and the soul-refined, 
Whose inner beings almost know 
The Savior's- sacrificial woe I 

And moving there, an unseen one 

Bears on her spirit-head a crown 

Of Eden's amaranthine gems, 

Eicher than queenly diadems : 

A harp of silver strings she keeps, 

And that fair bride's sweet soul she steeps 

In blissful music I What her name ? 

Alas I 'tis known to pride, and fame, 

To wealth, and honor, and to hate, — > 

To all desires life may create ; 

But never stained by all or one, 

Hope is the soul's unsetting sun, 

Attendant meet for such a scene, — 

The angel - sister of Allien I 

And mingled there a darker form, 
With eye subdued like a dying storm, 

* The Azalea nudiflora of Linnaeus is a beautiful specie? of Rhodo- 
dendron, g owing in the woods of Eastern and Central New York, pro- 
fusely flowering in April, before the leaves arc half-grown, very fragrant, 
la-ge, in clusters ; their hue a soft, indescribable rosc-piuk. 



186 SOXG OF THE RIVERS. 

With silent lips and mien of pride , 
Watching the fair and pensive brido : 
He moved like one who lives apart , 
In the silence of his own deep heart, 
Expressive only to his race, 
Rebuking feeling's sunny trace, 
And all those nameless arts that move 
Another to a thought of love : — 
Curbing a voice that rarely gave 
Its solemn bass to accents grave. 
He looked as though no barrier stood 
Before his sight, no fleshly hood 
Repelled his inner gaze of lig'ht. 
Beyond the wall of mortal night. 

Ontara's gift was the onl}^ one 
Bestowed without a smile or tone, — 
A cross his own rude hands had made, 
Smoothly with painted quills inlaid,— 
A hollow cross, with cubic throat. 
And fringed with beads in pearly rote, 
Wherein in white profusion stood 
Rare blossoms from a distant wood. 

She took the offering from one 
Whose inward life, like hers, had grown, 
Bowing in that sequestered place, 
AYith all the charm of courtly grace : 
Then, slowly, like the wane of day. 
The prophet turned and went his way , 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 187 

Complacent, leave the once succeeding years, 

Their energies and changes, happiness and tears,") 

Written more clear in volumes of the past, 

Sealed to eternity : some page, the last, 

Must bring us to the tale's material close,— 

0, soft in favoring minds be its repose I 

If one should, flattering, wish the record more, 

I point him to the Infinite's far shore, 

Where open every history shall be 

To one eternal judgment's just decree. 

The lips that told to me, in death are still — 

Lives none who such request might now fulfill. 

Not strange, methinks, the course that pair defined, 
Though brief in union life's career, designed 
By Heaven ; duty's inward imprints asking, 
Each day, though to perform were overtasking ; 
They lived, they toiled, they suffered, blessed and loved, 
They laid them down in peace when God removed 
Ilis lent spark immortal, — all was done, — 
The pure disfranchised soul death's victory won. 

Ah I sum so little, signs so faint of all 

Mankind may, from the cradle to the pall. 

Produce, fill up, describe and solve in part, — 

Is this — rude tale — the story of a heart ? 

Of one. And from the Omniscient's gracious throne 

Hope brings a promise that He deigns to own 

Its simple record one approving scene 

In th' unwritten drama of the 'Might have been.* 



188 



;OXa OF THE EtVErvS 



"VVlieep not for those who die in Sunimor's prime, 
AVhose beauty fades ere noonday's silvery chime ; 
Who pass serenely from their hibors here, 
Reliant on the future, whom no tear 
Of vain regret betrays life's purpose failed ; 
Whose true devotion, grief left unassailed 
Eejoice that mortal sorrows, strife and cloud, 
On such lives wasted like a snow-flake shroud 
From vernal bloom ; that virtue's placid reign 
Was not dispelled by disappointment's pain. 

Dear reader, such was she whose being" kept 

Its own chaste sanctity, from which there crept 

No secret staining shadow, no distrust 

Of man or God, believing nature just ; 

Whose aims were self-possessed, content, complete, 

Heroic, hopeful, loving. 

We have seen 
The gentle childhood of the pure Allien : 
The roses of her youth before us smiled, — 
Not rare exotics, not e'en blossoms wild 
Of pastures, prairies, woods, or ruins damp, 
Deserted garden, or of poisonous swamp, 
But virtues cultured by the careful hands 
Of parents strong in duty's stern commanus : 
And, too, we saw the dews of girlhood's love, 
Ere yet her heart of its own will would rove, 
Distill upon its fair parterre, and shine 
In radiance no iris may combine ; 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 189 

Love's offered fervor, with yontli's guileless art, 
Kindled the sleeping raptures of her heart, 
And life was bliss. 



The sorrowing climax came, 
And 'Oscar' lived — a sweet unuttered name, 
A memory, a hope of Heaven : — then life 
Seemed but a monitor of duty's strife ; 
Affection's triple-woven chain was broken, 
But warm from stranger hearts new love was spoken ; 
The youthful orphan found, in earth's rude wild, 
Bright skies above 'neath which the flowers still smiled, 
And by her own sweet truth, tlie star 
Of morning crowned this shaded tiara. 

First love to her was nature's gushing tide 
Of pure affection, lost, so never tried 
By love's deep, mastering passion, spirit-asking 
Granted to souls but once, or never : — Death unmasking 
While it wounded, proved the agency 
Of more intense felicity ; 
And through this full insphering of its power, 
She saw a fallacy, re-named the flower, — 
Christened anew the dead, a 'brother' lost ; — 
One dream grew dimmer, this was all the cost. 

"We may not dwell on life's last closing scene, 

But, gentle reader, give our lost Allien — 

A sigh ? A tear ? A song ? — AIj, no, a smile, 



190 SONG OF THE RIYER3. 

A'pleclg-e of hope. — Upon a cedar isle, 
Near Upper Mississippi's pebbly shore, 
Her ashes rest ; her sweet soul evermore 
Kejoices in the Eden of the skies, 
A song-bird of the Savior's Paradise. 



BEFRAIN. 



Grand River ! Flowing ever on 

Murmur approval now : 
Thy rippling inspiration gone. 

Frowns gathering on thy brow, 
Denied the smiles of thy wide vale. 
And who could weave another tale? 

Imperial waters of the West, 

Circlet of many a clime, 
Long be each coronet and crest 

Tribute to thee and time ; 
Posterity applaud forever 
Thy use and beauty, stately River I 



SONG OF THE RIVERS. 191 

Beneficent thy ministries 

Millions of graves declare : 
Sons wandering far 'neath foreign skies, 

And red men native there, 
Vanquished by death, from year to year, 
Time immemorial claim thy tear ! 

How long ? — The wilderness is dark — 
Thought's unanswering domain : — 

How long I — Is there response ? — Peace, hark I 
How long shall be thy reign? 

Ask God man's fate in His decrees, 

But check inquiries vague as these 1 

Reluctant, turn, my muse, away ; 

Farewell, grand sovereign tide I 
What though I wander many a day, — . 

Remembrance fosters pride ; 
And when I roam thy banks again, 
I still may dream of fair Allien 1 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



HAPPINESS AND INDUSTRY. 



'Happy, happy/ on the mountain, 
Seemed to think a bhie hair-bell,— 
*Pve no tale of grief to tell :' — 

* Happy always,' spoke a fountain, 
As its gushing waters fell 
In a marble chisseled well. 

'I am happy,' looked a daisy. 
On the meadow's emerald bed, 
Blooming with the clover red : — 

* Happy in the dances mazy,' — 
Thus a youthful maiden said, 
Tossing gay her curly head. 

'Happy, happy,' drone-bees murmur,- 
*Kiches — sweets of industry — 
Hoarded in the hive I see :' — 

'Happy in the golden Summer, — 
It has flowers and fruits for me,' 
Sang a youth all merrily. 
9 M 



196 HAPPINESS AND INDUSTRY. 

Blooms ma}'- nod in idle boauty ; 

Waters rest in sparkling- pride ; 

Queen-bees, drones, in honey hide : 
Manhood has a path of duty 

Spread before it clear and wide ; 

Turn, turn not it aside ! 

Yes — contentment is a treasure ! 
Seek it for its priceless worth, 
It is rare upon the earth ; — 

Not like drones enjoy your pleasure, 
Fields uncultured cause a dearth,- 
Idleness is sterile mirth. 

Parasitic, torrid verdure, 

All with grace and beauty rife- 
Other rootings give it life ! 

Whoso has no self-earned larder 
Has no meed of noble strife, 
Living' but a crippled life. 



EEMEMBRANCES. 



Like pictures bright tliey sometimes gleam 

Along our present way ; — 
Like bell-tones lost, or wasted stream, 

They pass, and where are they ? 
They show us oft and oft again, 

Youth's glory-beaming morn ; — 
Since then we've learned the spirit's pain, 

When hope breathed low and care was born I 

And memory stands a spectral friend, 

To fan affection's fire, 
When light and shade unequal blend, 

And trembling hopes expire 
Beneath that star whose lofty ray 

Scarce greets the heart's deep well. 
Eternal Faith, for which we pray, 

Sin's tumults wild to quell. 



MORNING IN THE COUNTRY. 



\ 



The fair invigorated earth 

From Night's embrace awakes ; 

Iris in all its myriad birth 
From every dew-gem breaks, 

While from th' uncurtained orient streams 
Apollo's radiating beams 1 

Opals and diamonds glitter bright, 
On blade and leaf and flower, 

As though the condescending night 
Had given her stars for dower. 

And Beauty in their rich array 

Became the bride of royal Day I 

Voices attuned to Nature's song 

Creation's joys declare ; 
Music's unfettered, guileless throng 

Control the powers of air. 
And harmoiiies mysterious swell 
From wood to wood, from plain to dell I 



MORNING IN THE COUNTRY. 199 

Ah, Peace ! Thou hast a peerless throne, 

A canopy, a shrine, 
Where woodlaDcls old, and prairies, own 

Their regions realms of thine, 
Whose pure elixirs ofifer balm 
To every heart that needeth calm ! 

Lives there a soul whose sense of life 

No morning has imbued 
With hearty scorn of gold, and strife 

Of forum, field and feud, 
Unblessing God that he was born, 
While drinking from the cup of morn ! 



EVENING IN THE COUNTRY, 



IVe watched from noon to wane of day, 

A fleet of white clouds sail 
Along" yon broad cerulean way, 

Soft, silvery and frail ; 
And now they rally in the west, 
Seeking a dreamy port of rest. 

Bright navy of the vaulted sky I 
Who guides your courses there ? 

Who spread your fleecy sails so high 
To furl in evening air ? 

Unlike too many lovely forms, 

Ye glow the brighter after storms ! 

As sinks the day they're growing dim ; — . 

Sweet sounds are dying slow j — 
The horizon's far wavy rim 

Bounds no vast peaks of snow, 
But, 'Alp on Alp,' in ether stand, 
Grey, solemn sentinels and grand ! 



EVENING IN THE COUNTRY. 201 

Now on the verdant thirsty soil 

Distilling dew descends ; 
And rest — sweet visitant of toil — 

Each weary form befriends ; 
And Nature's harp, though hushed its lays, 
Still trembles with its Maker's praise. 

As dies its murmurs near and far, 

Immortal longings thrill 
The soul, which chafes its fleshly bar 

To scape material ill, 
That Heaven and Peace may seal its bliss 
In hours more hallowing than this. 

The day has wandered, felt, unseen, 

To memory's laureled land, 
Whose chaplets fair — forever green, 

Array its shadowy band, 
Who wait time's mandate to restore — ^ 
Waiting in vain — the days of yore. 



9* 



THE CHILDREN OF ^OLUS. 



Where spreads a vast etheria! stream, 

Translucent as the eye of morn, 
In realms of air where sapphires gleam, 

And amethysts the domes adorn, — 
"Where noiseless clouds in dreamy dance 

Arise invisible from earth, 
Surrounded by a dark expanse, 

The winds, the wondrous winds, have birth. 

They linger not in native halls, — 

Their viewless wings impulsive swell ; 
Anon, the breeze of evening calls 

With whispers through a leafy dell : — 
It glides within a cottage door, 

Bends down to kiss an infant's curls, 
Then lightly sweeps the sanded floor, 

And with the snowy curtain twirls . 

^Tis gone I The gathering shades of night 
Impel the cottagers to rest ; 



THE CHILDREN OF iEOLUS. 203 

A sparkling wreath of astral light 
Sublimely circles midnight's crest; — ■ 

The calm is brief, — a power 's abroad, 
Whose rising voice proclaims its sway 5 

The fierce north-wind is shrieking loud, 
And Nature's forms are in dismay. 

Glad morning sunbeams smile again, 

Sweet sounds arise from feathered throngs, 
Fair Flora and her laughing train 

Dispense rich bloom and witching songs ; 
From man creation's anthem swells ; 

No winds disturb the opening day, 
But where the ocean laves its shells, 

They're tossing many a gem of spray. 

The east wind seeks dim Tartar plains, 

Arabia's sandy, spicy woods, 
The crumbling shrines fair Greece retains, 

The Delta's bounteous, sacred floods : 
It sometimes travels o'er the sea 

When Oriental sails unfurled 
Waft treasures to some foreign lea, 

From many a palmy island world. 

The west wind loves the Alpine cloud, 

Divides the Avalanche's seam, 
Lays on the Switzer's cot a shroud. 

Binds crystal ripples on the stream i 



204 THE CHILDREN OF ^OLUS. 

It visits Summer in disguise, — 

'Mong softly stirring, listless leaves, 

It bids the resting pilgrim rise, 
Ere yet the storm a tumult weaves. 

These formless children of the sky, 

Eccentric in their loves, desire 
Pledges of no fraternal tie, 

Of no Promethean fire. 
With ease they revel in the sphere 

Created for responsive man ; 
And when the rainbow sheds its tear. 

The winds subdued, its beauties scan. 



ANALOGY. 



Flowers by the wayside, 

Scattered here and there ; 
See them by the river's tide 
Growing sweet and fair ! 
Flowers on the mountain, 
Blossoms by the fountain, 
Violets in the wildwood, 
Daisies, loved of childhood, 
Hollyhock and golden-rod. 
Buttercups where paths are trod. 
How they will in manhood grown 
Make a slumbering memory known? 

Words of pleasant kindness 
Springing from the hea^t. 
Waking hope from blindness 

Healing sorrow's smart, 
Gracious human flowers 
From affection's bowers. 
Blooms not soon to perish, 
Charmers grief may cherish 
Shining round the portal 
Of a mind immortal, — 

K you Ve nothing else to give, 
Oh 1 bestow them while you live!, 



SUNSET QUESTIONS. 



0, what in this calm hour of Nature's sweetness 

Disturbs my inward rest, 
With such a burdening sense of incompleteness 

I know not how to test ? 
Look I for beauty, outward form and feature, 

Serene beyond compare ? 
Lovely inanimation, image, creature, — 

Sublimity more rare ? 
Waits my faint soul for music's new entrancement, 

For harmonies ideal ; 
For this celestial power's up-winged advancement, - 

Strophes divine, unreal ? 
Listens my thought, an echoing discerner 

Of memories of the past, — 
A statue, waiting time's inbreathed sojourner, 

To make its outlines last ? 
Am I of Earth or mortal agents asking 

Some happiness denied, 
Or e'en imploring Heaven, overtasking 

Soul-strength before untried ? 
Love, poesy, religion, 0, relieve me I 

What doth my heart require ? 
The half-revealing secret is, — believe me, — 

Love smothering its own fire I 



A COMPAEISON 



When sunlight on a pink-whito rose 
Grows softer in its gathered dew, 

The flower, unconscious why it grows 
So sweet, and beauteous in hue, 

Is as the picture to us seems 

When babv smiles amid his dreams. 



TO MY FATHER ON HIS SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY. 



Art thou in thy far mountain home 

Numbering thy vanished years to-day? 

Alone do thy slow footsteps roam, 
To ponder on thy children's play 

In Summer hours departed long-, 

So like a dying strain of song ? 

Or there, beneath the cedars grand, 

Bends low thy sad and thoughtful head, 

Bestowing on thy native land 

Sighs for its peace and glory dead, 

The dull red glimmer of its shield, — 

Mistaken honor of the field 1 

Dear father, almost loth am I 

To count the shadows of thy years j 

And 0, 1 cannot tell thee why, 
A seal is on the fount of tears ! 

But feeling, like the ocean deep, 

A calm exterior may keep. 



TO MY FATHER ON HIS SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY. 209 

Three-score ! The cycles, one by one, 
Have left faint impress on thy face : — • 

Fancy wings back to childhood gone, 
But no forgetting can erase 

Lines of dull care and curves of thought, 

By time's unresting pencils wrought. 



To-day I'd rove that vale with thee, 
Would breathe its pure elixir air ; 

My heart so bounding when 'tis free 
Nature's wild harmonies to share, 

Would almost back to infancy 

To rest upon thy parent knee ! 

But tell me not of radiant bloom 

Beneath the ' summit's' snowy band ; 

My soul so longs once there to roam 

On grass that springs from golden sand, 

Where meeting seasons blend their charms 

And Summer smiles in Winter's arms I 



The future gives no promise yet, 
And I must leave thee, father, still 

Almost alone, thy mild eyes wet 

With tears from fond affection's rill : 

But God is round thee ; by his caro 

Thy days shall move as safely there ! 



0, BURY ME IN SOME FOREST GRAND. 



0, bury me in some forest grand, 

Beneath an aged sheltering tree, 
In the soil of my own dear native land, 

Where all things are so fair and free 1 
In a wild-wood deep where sound the chords 

By unseen fingers strangely played, 
To charm proud Nature's silent lords 

With spheral song and serenade : — 
0, bury me there ; — I'd die in Spring, 

In dasied May, or rose-sweet June , 
When every heart so longs to sing, 

Responsive to high Nature's tune : 
When smile the loves of Flora's train 

At the feet of branching monarchs old, 
And fringy robes of sea-green pines 

Give brighter tinge from every fold ! 
I'd rather rest where untrimmed boughs 

Weave laceries above my head, 
Than sleep where C aria's queen bestows 

The costliest structure for her dead I 
But 0, I'd have a loving friend 

Kneel sometimes by my lonely tomb, 
On whom my spirit might descend, 

Winning unseen to love's bright home ! 



THE DEATH OF SUMMER. 



The airs of mild retreating hours 

In soft embracings float around, 
While pensively maturing flowers 

Lean toward the silent, somber ground: 
From Nature's mist-enveloped lyre 

Symphonic sweetness trembles low ; 
A faded hue its vestures wear,— 

Funereal murmurs come and go. 

To-day, the last of Summer days, 

Old Time recalls the season's breath ; 
But so to sympathize displays 

Banners of promise for its death :— 
To-morrow's sun will gild a bier, 

Where lies in pageant state a queen. 
So late the monarch of the year 

Her foot-prints guide her burial-train. 

Let grains of gold be scattered o'er 
The parted Summer's flower-lined tomb, 



THE DEATH OF SUMMER. 212 

And fruits delicious, which she bore 

From blossoms legacied of June ; 
And spread no dark portentous pall 

Around her vanquished loveliness, 
But leaves she nourished, in their fall, 

Weave crimson folds her bier to dress. 

November's plaintive breezes sing 

A triumph-dirge, queen, for you, 
When birds have flown on startled wing, 

"WTiere Summer lives as though anew I 
Yon sinking sun, cloud-marshaling, 

Let fall those many-colored gems 
For kindred muses thence to string 

The noripareii of diadems 1 



LOST TREASURES. 



When Springes soft skies were silver-blue, 

I nursed a flower of gentle hue ; 

Wlien life and love, and hope's gay train 

Broke forth anew with joy's glad strain : — . 

My blossom owned a fragrant heart, 

And envying bees would near it dart ; — 

It was not white nor red, but just 

A hue between, and when 't was brushed 

'Neath Venus' smile with evening dew, 

'T was the richest bloom I ever knew : 

Its beauty with each dream of mine. 

In vain delight I sought to twine ; — 

Alas I one morn a growing wind 

Told me my gentle thing to find ; — 

Gone was its fashion, — scattered far 

Its folds of waxy petals were I 

I asked the breezes where they fell, 

They moaned again, but would not tell ; 

Then pensively I walked awa^^, 



214 LOST TREASURES. 

My rose-queen mourning all that day. 



Time passed along, another flower 

Just from a far immortal bower, 

Mysterious drew my doting heart I 

It too was beauty's partial part, 

For it eclipsed the galaxy 

Of garden and conservatory : — 

A mind ilhuned the precious form, — 

A soul, sent forth by the ' I Am 1 ' 

In ecstacy of love and deep. 

This prize I surely thought to keep. 

And guarded it with hourly care, 

While sweet it breathed of Heaven's air ; 

But, ah I as once before, it came 

My proud and selfish heart to tame ; 

For soon with wings of light it flew 

To grander life beyond the blue ; 

And now I love the humblest flowers, — 

Dim, way-side plants of stinted dowers. 



THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 



The spirit of beauty reigns everywhere, 

Pervading the earth, the ocean, and air ; 

With wisdom divine its empire began, — 

Creation of God and treasure of man : — 

Its breath is the south-wind's lulling note ; 

On the azure of noontide its winglets float ; 

Its drapery curtains the sun to rest 

In the mystic chamber of the rainbow-west : 

It sings when storm has left the sea, — 

Its voice is known in the murmuring bee ; 

In bowers of verdure its music is heard, 

When carols in joy the innocent bird : 

Its children are leaves and sunbeams and flowers, 

Its companions the soft invisible hours ; — 

It loves not a part but all of the earth, 

For where do not beauteous things have birth I 

Where man has ne'er trod, in ocean-bound caves. 
It fashions bright shells to sing with the waves, 
And sends the fair nautilus on the seas, 
To sail o'er the waters with natural ease : 



216 THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 

It shines in gems of the earth and the deep, 

In the soft-falling snow, in the glacier's wild sweep, 

And it breaks the gloom of the Arctic night 

With the brilliant Aurora's wondrous light : 

It sleeps in the folded shades of even 

Or rests in the starry calm of Heaven ; 

Its food is immortal — the essence of love 5 

The spirit of beauty is nourished above I 



A DREAM. 



I walked the shaded village green, 
Passed by the old chupch door, 

Entered the school-house brown again, 
Sat by my desk onoe more : 

I heard the hasty morning bell, — 

A careless throng came in; 
The master's voice essayed to quell 

And hush the deafening din : 

Then as of old he slowly read 

From books the best of all. 
And solemn prayer went forth that led 

The mind from bat and ball. 

The sun advanced, the lessons learned, 
More restless were the crowd, 

Till out again they all were turned, 
With whoop and halloo loud I 

Then scampering on o'er clover meads. 

Disporting to each home, 
Some stopped for flowers, or pebble beads, 

Beside the cascade's foam. 

And as diverse their paths appeared 
Life's later paths have run ; — 

So my brief vision disappeared 
Before the present's sun. 
10 



TO A FPJEXD OF THE PAST. 



Dear Eachel mine, I 'd trace a lay 
With love's pure images inwrought. 

O'er which thine eyes may fondly stray 
With impulse of impassioned thought I 

I'd touch a heart to memorj^ dear, 

The soft ^olian of the mind, 
Whose subtle strings can scarce appear, 

For tinie hath made them undefined I 

Come from thine unknown love-haunt now 
And with my distant spirit feel , 

That potent charm, our early vow, 
Which fancy folds its wings to seal ! 

Again with careless feet we 're straying 
Through dreamy vistas of the past ; 

Before our morning life-shrines laying 
Affection's offering, cloud-o'crcast I 



219 TO A FKIEND OP THE PAST. 

Ag-ain we smile where 'Oakley^ smiles 
O'er Hudson's peaceful island tide, 

Whose mirroring breast the sky beguiles 
To give its azure for his bride I 

And this was home, the heart's content^ 
Sacred to peace — though justice long 

Withheld approval — where we spent 
Delightful days of love and song I 

There oft thy sweet guitar and free 
Its pensive, tinkling numbers woke 

While plaintive words etherially 
From thy soft accents broke I 

How deeply then I longed to sing, 
To mingle with thy flowing strain, 

And mount as on the spirit's wing ; — • 
For vocal song I sighed in vain 1 

I must not linger here with thee, 
Else from my restless inward life 

May burst a stream to swell the sea 
Of sorrow's overwhelming strife I 



EAYS OF LIGHT. 



See them tlirongh the darkness gleaming 
See them edging every cloud I 

behold them softly streaming 
O'er the throng of patriots bowed 

'Neath the banner of the stars, 

Kesting from the Union's wars I 

Now the shadows shift their changes, 

Aureate the folds become ; 
Brothers, — freemen, — friends and strangers 

Gather, joyful as they come. 
Swelling p^ans, sounding royal 
Diapasons of the loyal 1 

Wider, stronger grow the oeamings, 

More cerulean shines the sky, 
More beneficent the dreamings 

Of the soul of Liberty : 
Peace, white winged, has left her ejne. 
Kescucd from her vigil dreary 1 



221 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

And the eagles, — see their pinions 
Hasting" downward througli the air,- 

Scanning all the broad dominions 
Of a region rich and fair ! 

Ah I they perch upon the altar 

Round which heroes never falter I 

Now upon this shrine of glory 
Justice showers laurels green, 

While she stamps the thrilling story 
Of new struggles that have been, 

When the noblest souls were banded. 

Unrelenting, iron-handed 1 

Sun of Freedom ! Thou art shining, 
Unbeclouded is thy blaze, 

Memory's midnight interlining, 
Hallowing dim departed days, 

On Progression's standard high 

Fixing every patriot's eye I 

November, 1861. 



RETROSPECTION. 



These Autumn airs that kiss my brow and sigh for 
Summer's youth, 

Bear on their violet winglets incense of the heart's 
deep truth : — 

Afar the years have wandered since that sad consol- 
ing hour : 

The Springs have bloomed, and died the bright Au" 
tumnal flower. 

Tlie angel of my being smiled upon a mournful path, 

For I'm an orphan; — life was darkened by my pa- 
rents' death. 

*■ 

One gentle day like this, 1 wandered forth alone, to 

kneel 
Upon the leaf-strewn mound, in grief which none but 

orphan's feel ; 
The golden-rods moved lightly in the cool and scented 

breeze. 
And all the forms of nature vied the intellect 

please j 



RETROrSECTIOX. 223 

A crown of gold and purple rested on the distant hills 

Adown their sunny sides like silver flowed the joy- 
ous rills ; 

I sat upon the double grave, and mused on grief and 
death, 

When something stirred the boughs more strong than 
stirred the zephyr's breath ; — 

A stranger stood before me — one with proud and 
noble form, — 

His gracious words fell softly, for his heart was kind 
and warm : — 



Time passed away, and from that holy hour I learned 

to lovo ; 
While resting on his breast I saw the angels smile 

above ! 
The void of my lone heart grew fruitful of a pure 

delight ; 
My soul, no more desponding, saw no more a starless 

night ; 
My palpable existence seemed no more a shattered 

shroud ; 
A halo shown around like rays that glorify the cloud 
And beauty all-pervading fed my longing mind again 
So nought in all the world semed dark or sorrowful, 

or vain ! 
Then duty called my precious one, — he wandered oe'r 

the sea ; — 



RETROSrECTION 224 

Our spirits parted not, nor will in God's eternity. 
How trustingly I waited, but his form came back no 

more ! 
He landed on the unexplored, far-off, immortal shore ; 
And patiently I wait for closer union in that clime 
AVlicre no decay sheds darkness on the sun-lit track 

of time. 



UNREST. 



What do I ask in this uncertain hour ? 

My over-anxious heart 
Shrinks like the inner petals of a flower, 

Full blown, its counterpart, — 
not a blossom rare, but free and wild, — 
Dweller of shaded dell, or mountain child I 

Is there a fount of joy in inward song ? 

Do I claim a fuller tide ? 
Quaffing alone, am I than once less strong 

In faith, in love, or pride ? 
What do these undefined murmurs ask — 
Has duty or content become a task? 

Does slumbering energy complaiu 

Its wasting nerve unused? 
Why congregate these clouds, portending rain— 

why these eyes suffused 
With herald tears? — This must be transient grief I 
E'en Spring may sometimes drop a ' yellow leaf/ 

Faint heart I Thou hast a faithful sentinel, — 

Unvail to Hope thine eyes ; 
She guards thy longing dreams of love so well, 

Before thee to the skies 

Their beauty shall pass on ; — ^liow sweetly there 

Thou yet mayst breathe in pure affection's air I 
10=^-^ 



INSPIRATION. 



Breezes of AutiTmn, whence your wandering winf^s, 

Bearing- sweet balm to my inquiring soul I 
From what rich land vibrate your viewless strings ? 

Where shines the sea to which your currents roll?— 
This dreamy mood your spirit-kiss inspires, — 

This mild forgetfulness of pain and strife, 
It soothes my being with refined desires, 

And adds a rainbow charm to love and life. 

Spirits of truth and destiny — they come — 

These whisperings of the wild, untrammeled air, 
Breathing of an immortal, glorious home, 

Where love and holiness forget despair ; 
Their influence turns the tide of gloomy thought, 

Melting the heart to bliss ; — its mountain snows 
Flow downward, to its emerald valleys brought 

In sunny rills, they greet the blooming rose I 



INSPIRATION. 221 

Bright Amavantli, whose purple checks maintain 

Such royal hcauty, whence tliy hilling* power ? 
Ilath this soft wind from Eden's g'orgcous plain 

Bequeathed thy magic, rich unfa^ding flower ? 
And is my heart like thee — its faithful light 

Of sanguine love to burn and glow forever, 
Unpaled by disappointment's troubled night, — 

Gilding every shadow, withering never ? 

Reality ! The ideal makes the real, 

The thought that stamps each virgin page of time 
And he whose life is patient, earnest, leal 

May gather hopes in fruits of life sublime ! 
Then whisper, gentle airs, instruct my soul, — 

AVisdom and exaltation to it bear ; 
And when the stream of death shall round me roll, 

I may to God my grateful love declare. 



THE SOWING OF LIGHT. 



It comctli not in liquid showers, 

With music murmuring, 
Nor as the slow-unfolding- flowers 

Of each returning- Spring- ; 
Not as the tribune of the storm, 

Nor rippling waters' swell, 
Nor lig-htning blazes of alarm, 

Nor aught these may dispel. 

^T is 'sown^ in white and sea-wide streams. 

Falling direct from Heaven ; — 
Love's mellowing of its own beams, 

By truth and beauty given ; 
Its harvest ripening all the year, — 

Its blossoms peace and smiles, — 
The fruit Jehovah makes it bear 

Cheers Earth and all her isles. 



THE SOWING OF LICHT. 229 

It paints all nature in all hues, 

Encliantingly arrayed, 
And dungeon airs it may infuse 

From color's gay arcade ; 
It brings the morn to fever's pain, 

And day's rebuke to crime, 
And carves the amethystine vein 

That makes the mount sublime. 

It tints the infant's open eyes, 

And shows the grave-shroud pure, 
And, lingering, lets the evening skies 

The lover's steps allure ; — 
The painter's art is scarce his own, — 

In fractions of the hours 
Light on the camera is sown, 

And eyes we love are ours. 



^lY STARS. 



Blue eyes, bright eyes, 
Let your sunrise 
Open my lids to smile, 
My sorrowing dream exile, 
This parting reconcile, 
And bid me hope nor longer weep, — 
In love's dew-bloom my sad soul steep, 
And let me feel anew 
Such light is ever true I 

Fond eyes, loved e^^es, 
Which otherwise 
Have never looked on me, 
Though wandering far, still see 
The need mine have of ye, — 
Still be their tender substitute, 
And may no foreign ones compute 
The bliss you thus discover, 
Brightening our world all over I 



JIY STAHS. 

Pare eyes, proud eyes, 
God's mysteries I 
Teach me as oft before, 
With your enchanting lore. 
To worship more and more 
Beauty and intellect divine, 
Trembling beside its mortal shrino 
In rays so manifest, 
Making me more than blest I 

Kind eyes, thought eyes. 
Sweet, silent sighs, 
A wealth of peace conveying 
When misery surveying, — 
Potential faith's calm praying, — 
Half shade your partial brightness now, 
While deepening inward, knowing how 
One sits alone, alone. 
Singing love's monotone I 

gentle e^^es ! 
Ye sympathize, 
And, spirit-borne, compel 
Me yet again to tell 
I thought not stars could dwell 
'Neath human brows in miniature, 
Lessening joy's distance to insure 
Perpetual delight, — 
Rare jewels of my night I 



231 



MY COMPANION. 



Spirit of Solitude, reflection's queen. 

Majestic in thy loneliness serene — 

Beneficent in all th}^ ministry, 

Though unconfest by those who silent!/ 

Bemoan their contradicting destiny, — 

Thou art my cherished friend ; and yet to tell 

Another how 'tis so serves to dispel 

His cheery smile, or make a gay heart shun 

The chamber of the melancholy one ! 

So thou to me art not a phantom grim — 

A discord in my life's low murmured hymn, 

Nor verdict of forgetfulness of joy, 

Rebuking not, though on a toy 

Occasion lets me look and sometimes smile ; 

Nor frowning when wild birds and flowers beguile 

My mood from contemplation more sublime. 

When thought, a vine, is not a vine to climb I 

I love thee, watchful and exclusive one ; 
Favored by thee, I need not feel alone | 



MY COMPANION. 233 

Disclose thy confidence — a sorceress 

Is but the child of fable, — I possess 

Her magic, vivified with ecstacy 

All real and present, when I summon thee, 

A willing though a casual visitor, 

And draw the curtains round my iniaer door I 

Then — no, I'll not tell all the world, nor part, 

How soothing and encouraging thou art ; 

How beautiful and solemn is the story 

We then together read ; thou with thy hoary, 

Grand, consecrated head, so wise, yet mild, 

And I beside thee, learning like a child 1 



FANTASIE. 



Once from a darkly vaulted cave 

Some prisoned waters broke, 
And hasted forward brightly brave. 

For they to light awoke. 

A brooklet cheery, on it went 

Through wild-woods deep and vast, 

Where ferns and flowers o'er it bent 
And graceful figures cast. 

And on — meandering through the vales 

Where lilies waved in pride, 
And falling petals mimic gales 

Snowed softly on its tide ; 

Where splendid sunbeams grandly smiled 

On ripples to it born, 
As laving rocky feet more wild 

Its narrowed course led on. 



FANTASIE. 235 

Blue ocean's broad, imfathomed deep 

Keceived its cliild at length, 
And though absorbed, it loves to sleep 

Within creative strength. 

And so the soul — man's deathless mind, 

By thought's Eternal given, 
Rolls onward till its currents find 

An ocean rest in Heaven. 



DISTRUST. 



I saw a sqm'rrcl nimbly bound 
In graceful sb^aiess on the bill, 

His eyes surveying all tbe ground 
In searcb of food bis mouth to fill. 

With step abated, I advanced 

That I tbe sprite might plainer see ; — 

Ah, ba ! provokingly he danced, 
And dai;ted up our tall pine tree ! 

* Come down,' in accents mild I said, 

' I'd never do a squirrel harm ; 
I'll smooth your fur, and give you food, 
And nest of down all white and warm V 

* Nay, gentle Miss, I would not dare, 

I'm sure, to trust myself with you, 
For something says, " take care, take care," 
You might to squirrel prove untrue. 



UISTRUiT. 23*1 

I could not bido a gilded cage, 
Were it the finest ever seen ; 
Nor ever learn your maxims sage, — > 
A free-born native of the green 1 

* So if you '11 please to walk away, 
I'll scamper to my hidden home ; 

And when you'd visit Squirrel Grey, 
Just sound the woods and I will come. 

'Bounding before your footsteps then, 
I '11 lead where rarest blossoms grow ; — • 

In wild- wood deep, and mossy glen, 
I '11 show you where blue viols blow I' 

I turned, and quick he fled my sight, 
As thoughts of beauty sometimes fly;— 

I almost wept behind his flight. 
And deemed him happier than L 



SECEET LIFE. 



Contrasting often ; — each one liath 
Two spheres, the inner not the mate 
Of the creation visible to all ; 
Two forms pursue one being's path ; 
Two natures for the last cliange wait,^ 
Duality, ideal and literal I 

Mysterious Kealm! Philosophy 
Is proud to gain its ivied portals, 

And write for truth on its exclusive page 
Time's silent talcs. Mild history 

Sighs, incomj)lete, for those immortals. 

Thoughts and emotions for her ken too sage, 



SECRET LIFE. 239 

Love owns alone the certain key, 
Which fate forbids a frequent using", 

And death, disturbing, weakens its weird power: 
Hippie, and swell, and wave, we see. 
And storm we feel, and joy's diffusing, 

Of that dear life we love, but what its dower ? 

i'he gift of insight to its strife 
Of impulse silenced, sin repelled ; 

Of hope's allurings gently questioned, wisely ; 
Of all the spirit wealth of life. 
Decay subverted, dross expelled,- 
Duty's interior balance poised precisely I 



THE SPIRIT OF SPRmO. 



Like a white sea-bird, over time's deep wave 
An angel comes with glory intense, 
Whose wings will rest in foliage dense 

When clovers are purpling on the AVinter's dim grave. 

lis the gentle Spring from her home above, — 
Her sweet blue eye is moist with a tear, 
A stranger there for many a year. 

Sparkling with thought and pitying love. 

Can ye tell who strive for your country now, — 
Brave freemen strong in Heaven and right I 
Ye mourners bowing amid the wild night, — 

Can ye answer why this fountain should flow ? 

Are we told that sorrow is tearless and stern, 
When deep and true, eternal and strong; 
That weeping eyes p;row brilliant m song 

When the lamps of hope for new pleasures burn? 



THE SPIRIT OF SPRING. 241 

But tlie Spring' is mourning for this land of ours, 
Red stained with blood its brothers have shed ; 
Her voice is prayer for the living and dead, — 

She would crown them all with her beautiful flowers. 

And rainbows wreathing her forehead of truth 

Shall only fade in victory's sun, 

When Freedom's arms new glories have won 
To perpetuate Columbia's youth I 

3Iarch, 18G2. 



11 



TO AN ABSENT HUSBAND. 



When all the world are sleeping", 
When thought is calm and free. 

In midnight's hush of beauty, 
My love, I fly to thee 1 

When stars and airs and waters 
Send forth their angels fair, 

To charm the wandering dreamer, 
I 'm with thee, dearest, there ! 

Entranced with spirit-music, 
We ramble through our past, 

'Neath shades and hallowed archways, 
*Mid blooms too fair to last. 

In paths through meadows winding — 
The emerald plains of bliss — 

And on its lofty mountains, 

Where snow and sunbeams kiss. 



TO AN ABSENT HUSBAND. 243 

The morning of our bridal 

Dawns on us, dear, once more : 

We feel its halcyon promise, 
And live it o'er and o'er ! 

But then grim storm-clouds gather,— 

Ay, through the passing years 
Their thunders are repeated, 

And I awake — in tears. 

Tears, not of dark repining. 

But joy's and griefs o'erflow, 
Commingling in the fountain. 

Ere Nature bade them go. 

Ah I then life's holiest angels, 
Hope, Faith, and trusting Love, 

Around me sing their chorals, 
And peace is mine, dear love I 



CONTENTMENT. 



I live in Fernclell, where my home 

Is carpeted with velvet moss, 
And from it never would I roam, 

Nor once my emerald threshold cross 
For all the world has sung or smiled, — 
I 'm Love's contented, modest child : 

Violet. 

My home overhangs the precipice 

Time's waves or bolts have cleft asunder, 

Where passively I meet the kiss 

Of breezes soft, or shocks of thunder ; 

And from the cliff my bloom adorns, 

I shower the plain with ruby horns ; 

Columbine, 

I blossom where warm sunbeams find 

No forest shadows to pervade ; 
Where monarch trees have ne'er declined, 

By paths the buffalo have made ; 
I love the unobstructed plain, 

Prairie Rose. 



COXTENTMEXT. 



245 



Where darkest and most still the aisles 

Of woods' primeval signal time 
Where light's gay iris never smiles, 

And hushed is Nature's festal chime, 
Owning no tint of green, I fold 
My pearl dress near the dead leaves' mould : 

Monotropa. 

I float upon the water's breast, 

Yet far from home I never go ; 
Enough for me to be carest 

By Summer airs and tides below ; 
To wear robes hued like angels', and 
Freight winds with fragrance for the land : 

Pond Lily. 

Where burns the zenith's sun I bloom,— 
Strange, strange to me are fabled showers ; 

The thorny wall that guards my home 
Is proud of crested carmine flowers ; 

And were I not so strong, and harsh, and rude, 

I 'd wither in the tropic solitude : 

Cactus. 



FORBIDDEN JOYS. 



They come when fancy to the spirit brings 
The rapturous touch of her etherial wings, 
When all we long for seems within our reach, 
But to recede like wavelets on the beach I 
They come amid the curtained bloom of dreams, 
Gathering like dews from Eden's silver streams. 
To flee, alas ! as wondrously away 
As doth the diamond's phosphorescent ray, — 
Sparkling a moment in the deeps of night, 
And where, we ask, hath flov/n our brief delight? 
Ah ! when thus erringly we seem to feel 
Forbidden pleasure, still we sigh, and steal, 
Half consciously, scarce knowing if 'tis sin. 
Or blessedness that thrills us so within. 
mortal strifes of this embittered state I 



FORBIDDEN JOYS. 24t 

Your feverish joys and pains ofttimcs create 

Harmonious hopes of happiness and love, — 

Reflections of serenity above : 

And when the wearied, worn, despairing heart, 

Enfeebled by suspense, would fain depart 

Its mortal bound, rarely burns anew 

The torch of hope, than all before more true; 

When love's elastic clasps of tenderness 

Entwine with new tenacity of bliss 

The idol of affection, and we smile. 

And smile again, like sunbeams on an ocean isle. 



MURMURS 



How long will it be? How long will it beV 

When my spirit leaves its house of clay, 
Will it soar to heaven with time's slow flight, 
Or speed like a noiseless ray of light 
To its home eternal far away ? 

How long will it be? How long will it be? 

Ere comes the rest of this full release, — 
A month or a clay, an hour or a year. 
Prolonging the fever, the sigh and the tear, — 

AVatching the moments in their slow decrease ? 

. How long will it be ? answer me ! 
Revelation, Nature, I ask in vain ; 
My course on earth — my labor done, — 
Have I the mute ni^asure almost run 
To the climax throb, the dying pain? 



MURMURS. 249 

Ye shadows of gloom, away from mo, 

Unvail life's joy, oppress not its breath I 
I'll smile though my heart be wasting and worn, 
Its sheltering draperies soiled and torn, 

Since the portal of Heaven is entered by death. 

Not long shall I struggle and weep to see 

The substance displaced for the shadow pale; 
Not long like the flower in Spring-time blown 
Shall I wait for something unfound and unknown, 
Fruition will come behind the dark vale. 



*114c 



CONTEMPLATIONS. 



All ! whence, thou wondrous winged thought 

Whose changing visions round me throng I 
I've not your highest promise cixnght, 

But still you leave me love and song, 
And lead me forth in flowery fields 

Where skies of purple glory spread, 
Inviting rest in shade that yields * 

Calm memories of the solemn dead I 

The dead in nature — last year's bloom, — 

Its penciled leaf and painted flower ; 
The fruit that fell before the tomb 

Of Winter claimed the Summer hour ; 
The chrysalis and butterfly ; 

The fallen fringes of the pines 
That whispered ' immortality,' — 

Creation's proof of God's designs. 



CONTEJIPLATIONS. 251 

I feel there's life in leaves and grass, 

The insect world my homage claims, 
When new to earth Spring sun-fires pass 

I see the cowslip catch its flames ; 
The clover-globe of mystic sweet 

Has other, gentler charm for me 
Than food for kine — by nature meet — • 

Or work-house for the koney-bee. 

In these communings thought droops wing, — 

I never mourn that I'm alone 
For troops of viewless spirits sing, 

And all-pervading love I own ; 
But oft I would such moments share, 

And each ennobling sense I feel, 
With those who seem so unaware 

How sweet the blisses they reveal I 



THE AUGUST SHOWER. 



The dewless skies of morning 

Not long were spread, 
When trooping clouds gave warning, 

Darkening o'erhead ; 
Then cooling airs moved stronger, 

More fragrant seemed, — 
The solar king no longer 

Triumphant gleamed : 
Soon yellow lights came flashmg 

Across the panes, 
And thunders loudly crashing 

Their viewless. chains, 
Ground, roof, and tree, and tower, 

Were flooded o'er, — 
A bright mysterious shower — 

Still more, and more. 
Anon the stream moved onward 

And onward far ; — 
Each lingering drop fell downward, 

A tiny star I 
Again the sunbeams wreathing 

The arch above 
Inspired the grateful breathing, 

* Our God is Love I' 



'MIMOSA; 



Yes, such I call thee, friend, but thou 
Art faker than that plant so rare, 
Whose blooms are drops of gold, 
Whose leaves, profuse pale emeralds, know 
Approaching contact through the air, 
And soft their edges fold I 

Thy nature is too fine for strife 

Like Earth's, where, cold and dark and rude, 
O'erwhelming sorrows stay ; 
Too exquisite for real life, — 
Better for thee in solitude 

With one true heart to stray I 

And I that chosen one would be. 

Watching each moment lest the wind 
Too harshly greet thy brow j 



254 'mimosa.' 

Guarding' each sense so tenderly, 
Whispering so soft and so refined 
That thou no pang could know 1 

love is rare — such love as mine, 
Which mist-like finds the inmost cell 
Of feeling, life and thought ; 
Joy's faintest thrilling to define, 
Griefs lightest cloudlet to dispel. 
Whose sighs with bliss are fraught I 

Then chide me not, e'en though extreme 
Solicitude for thee may crush 
Some violets unseen ; 
Their scattering fragrance, like a dream 
Disparting in the morning's blush, 
Leaves memory serene. 



LAMENTING-. 



Alas! some forms grow brigliter 

When soon to pass away ; — 
The radiant crown of Autumn 

Embraces dull decay ; 
The chrysalis awakens 

With gaily spotted wing, 
To make a brief, brief transit 

Beyond the tomb of spring. 

The gems that rise o'er fountains 

In mock celestial show, 
Dazzle the eye a moment 

And brighten as they go ! 
The noon-day cloudlet ashen 

Flashes in gold and red, 
'When evening and high nature 
Apollo's curtains spread. 



256 LAMEXTIXG. 



And hope gives promise ever 

Of glory in its flight ; 
When trusted most it leaves us 

The blank of sorrow's night ; 
Yet as a fettered eaglet 

Looks longing toward the sky, 
I'm trying, aiming always 

Its eyrie to descry I 

A home of lofty beauty 

Above the casual storms 
That threaten to demolish 

My charming dream-built forms I 
Ah ! failing here to find it, 

Shall disappointment's gloom 
O'er shadow thought's endeavor, 

And song to sorrow doom 1 



MEMENTO MOBL 



When by thy lifers green winding path 
Joy's dearest flowrets grow, 
Its smoothest streamlets flow, 

Remember, remember death 1 

And when inspired by vernal airs 
Young snow-drops ope their eyea, 
When silver waves the skies, 

Remember death for beauty cares I 

When Summer sings of love and peace — 

Of Paradise again, 

Of golden wealth of grain, 
Be mindful of thy soul's release I 

TOien Autumn's crimson dying leaf 

Falls on thy pensive way 

Fluttering to decay. 
Memento Mori ! Life is brief I 

But mourn thou not when Winter chill 
Bids northern snow-sheets fall ; 
Greet the prophetic call 

Of storm-winds o'er the elected hill I 



A MOMENT OF DESPONDENCY. 



fearful gift of sympathy ! heart 

Too finely strung, whose silken fibers rise 

Or fall with gentlest airs that blow them I Thou 

Hast suffered undeserved torturo.s for 

Thy fond solicitude for other souls I 

Misplaced, perchance, and hence the penalty ; 

But who shall tell the blossom when and where 

It may diffuse its fragrance that a sense 

Appreciative only meet its breath ? 

It is too late when song has gushed from birds 

To say no ear shall thrill with ecstacy, 

Eeceptive of its inspiration ! So 

Too late when mountain cascades float in spray 

Deep hidden in primeval shade, to say 

No sunbeams there disclose the iris Avreath I 

And so the free outpouring of the wealth 

Of nature's warm, untrammelled feelings, late, 

Too late for calm philosophy to save 

The sorrow disappointment brings. 



SONG OF A SUNBEAM. 



From Heaven's empyreal fount of liglit, 
Along a rainbow crystal way , 

Between its distant walls of night, 
I roam with my companions gay I 

When stars grow dim in ether's track 
We scatter o'er the mountains blue 

The midnight's shadows still and black, 
And give the east its rosy hue 1 

Immortal as the ruling Power 

Who taught us how to flash and shine, 
We still to leaf and lowly flower 

Give luster from the lamp divine I 

On forms inanimate wo pour 
The radiance of beauty's wing ; 

And human hearts may evermore 
Inspired by our rejoicings sing I 



260 SONG OF A SUXBEAM. 

Pursuing' pity's holy dream, 

Sometimes I leave my golden band, 

The desolate become my theme, — 
A prisoner's cell, a tremblhig hand, 

A buried love, a mourner's prayer, 
Betray new life and thrill in me ; 

I chase the storm-king from the air, 
And still the horrors of the sea I 

We form the fringes of the star, 
And glow behind the vail of night ; 

More swift than thought the sunbeam's car, 
Nor age nor space can check its flight I 



nOME INVOOATION. 



Missouri, grasp thy colors now, — 
Unfurl them to the Autumn breeze, 
While every stately sister sees 

Thy bloom and wealth, — thy Press and Plow I 

Invoke of Fame a clarion note 

To sound o'er piountains, streams and plains, 
From Texas' shore to Huron's chains 

Where waters coldly, grandly float 1 

Let signs of freedom cheer the sceno 
Of all industrious, noble arts, 
While every gloomy shade departs 

That curtains yet our country's mein I 

With welcome glad, sincere and free. 
Receive thy guests from far and near, 
And make thy pleasant regions dear, 

To every heart saluting thee I 



HOME INVOCATION. 

Lot happy antlioms loyal sung 
Columbia's faithful scions prove, 
And each discordant note remove 

From elements so finely strung I 

Let pure ambition give its name 
To all who seek progression's road, 
To every mind that looks to God 

For broad Missouri's growing fame 1 

So shall the world approvals give 
To victors of a noble race, 
And history delight to trace 

Thy name enrolled for aye to live I 



V^. 



AD 3.3. 



